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Hilton HHonors List of 101 Category-2 Hotels in USA, October 2013

Hilton HHonors Category 2 hotels cost 10,000 points per night or 40,000 points for a 5-night stay for HHonors VIP elite. The cost of a category 2 hotel is 50% of the points required of a category 3 at 20,000 HHonors points per night or 80,000 points with 5th night free rewards.

Hilton HHonors is approaching 4,000 hotels worldwide. There are 35 category-1 hotels  (<1%) and 134 category-2 hotels (3%).

There are ten hotel reward categories in Hilton HHonors. The cost of HHonors reward nights are based on hotel category. HHonors redesigned its hotel reward category system in early 2013. 

HHonors Reward Chart by Category

The sweet spots of the HHonors Reward table are category 1 and 2, where if you can find a suitable hotel with reward space, then the cost of five nights at a 5,000 points category 1 hotel is the same 20,000 points cost for one reward night at a category 3 hotel. A category 2 hotel reward night at 10,000 points per reward night is half the cost of a category 3 reward night at 20,000 points.

The primary obstacle to getting great savings at category 1 and 2 hotels are the relatively small number of hotels in the two lowest reward categories.

Hilton HHonors Category 1 has 35 hotels worldwide, less than 1% of Hilton’s global portfolio. Only five of these hotels are in the USA. The 35 hotels in category 1 are listed in this Loyalty Traveler post: Where 35 HHonors Category 1 Hotels Are. These are highly discounted reward nights, but you have to be in one of the few locations like China, Egypt, Mexico, UK or Oman to find a hotel.

Hilton HHonors Category 2 has 134 hotels worldwide with 101 hotels in the USA. The hotels in the USA are concentrated in the southeastern states and Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico and scattered around midwestern states farm country of Illinois, Indiana and Iowa.

HHonors cat 2 by state

  • 24 states have Hilton HHonors category 2 hotels.
  • Alabama, Georgia and Texas have double-digit, 10 or more, category 2 hotels.
  • Illinois, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma have 5 or more HHonors category-2 hotels.
  • Only 10 of 101 Hilton HHonors category-2 hotels in USA are not Hampton Inn brand.

HHonors cat2 AL-Fl

One hotel that catches my attention on this list is Colorado Springs Airport.

Bakersfield, California is useful to me since that is the near the half-way point between my home in Monterey and Las Vegas for the 510-mile drive. Travelers driving between San Francisco or Sacramento and Las Vegas may find the two hotels in Bakersfield useful since they are half-way along the 560-mile drive.

Alabama and Arkansas are good places for the Hilton HHonors traveler.

HHonors cat 2 GA-IA

Georgia along with Texas leads the states for most HHonors category-2 hotels with 14 including the DoubleTree Atlanta Airport. The farm belt land of Illinois, Indiana and Iowa offer several category-2 hotels. And two of the five Doubletree Hotels in the USA listed as Category 2 hotels are in Chicago suburbs.

HHonors cat2 KY-OH

Several of the Hampton Inn Category-2 hotels are near college towns. New Mexico and North Carolina have six hotels each if traveling around these states.

Hampton Inn Alamogordo, New Mexico is near White Sands National Monument. This desert park preserves part of the world’s largest gypsum sand dunefield, 15 minutes from Alamogordo. I experienced these massive white dunes several times when I was 11 years old and lived at White Sands Missile Range.

Santa Fe, New Mexico recently placed #2 in Top 10 Cities of the USA in Conde Nast Traveler’s Readers Choice 2013 awards. You might want to check out the natural beauty of New Mexico in some more rural parts of the state too and six Hilton HHonors category-2 hotels can help.

HHonors Cat-2 OK-VA

Texas and Oklahoma have 20% of the Category-2 hotels in the USA. Virginia, Tennessee and South Carolina along with their neighboring states also offer many HHonors category-2 hotel options when touring these regions.

These are the 101 hotels in HHonors category 2 rewards for the USA as listed on HHonors October 18, 2013.

A separate post will cover the 33 international hotels with 13 hotels across four countries in Europe.

8 Comments

  • Rayn October 19, 2013

    IIRC, the DT at RIC was cat 1 when Hilton devalued early this year. It is now cat 2 w/o notice.

  • Mileage Update October 19, 2013

    This is good analysis. For Hilton before I manufacture spend, I have a plan for where I want to stay and how much I value the HHonors points.

  • Mark (@palmerlaw) October 19, 2013

    DT Chicago Wood Dale is GREAT! Used the 10,000 HH/night rate for Chicago Seminars. They were remodeling it during CS 2012 and now it’s all done and very nice. Even though it does NOT offer ORD shuttle service, it makes for a great ORD hotel with a short taxi or Uber ride, IMO.

    Great post!

  • Wendy October 19, 2013

    The Bowling Green Ohio Hampton Inn is located walking distance to Bowling Green State university. So if anyone wants to see a concert at the Stroh center or watch a sporting event. It would be convenient.

  • iwantmoremiles October 20, 2013

    Great review. In general, are these Cat 1 and 2 clean and comfortable rooms?

  • Ric Garrido October 20, 2013

    @iwantmoremiles – That is what TripAdvisor is good for.

    One time I booked a room at a Comfort Inn in Oregon, drove up to the hotel, and then checked TripAdvisor after my arrival. I canceled the hotel reservation while sitting in the parking lot and rebooked another hotel in a different part of town.

  • Nick October 20, 2013

    I find Hampton Inn’s & HGI’s to be consistent enough. I recently got great value using Hilton points in Mexico, not the resorts, but some of the cities are outstanding value now.

  • Ren October 31, 2013

    Thank you very much for this and the category 1 points list – search the entire internet for this. Any idea when you might release the international points list? Thank you.

Comments are closed.

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