Hilton has massively devalued their points (ht: One Mile at a Time) and, as someone who has been very loyal to Hilton — including buying points whenever they were on sale — this one really hurts.
Previously, the most points that you’d use on a standard room at a Hilton portfolio or SLH property was 200,000 per night, but they’ve now moved that cap to 250,000 points per nights, a 25% increase. If this was the only increase this year, it wouldn’t be ideal but it’s important to note that prior to May 2025, the most points that you’d use on a standard room at a Hilton portfolio or SLH property was 150,000 per night — meaning Hilton has increased the number of points needed at some properties by ~67% this year alone.
Luckily I book my travel almost a year out, so I already have award stays with Hilton booked through February 2026 under the old points scheme.
This is sadly just another case of a recent trend in travel over the last few years: loyalty simply isn’t worth it. And it’s also a lesson to me and others to not buy points speculatively, even when they’re on sale.
At this point, I’m just counting down the days until Hilton devalues its free night certificates so that they can’t be used at their higher-end properties and, at that point, I’ll get rid of my Aspire card.
How do you feel about the recent Hilton devaluation?
2 comments
Hilton is just stealing a page from the Bonvoy playbook. It’s genuinely a shame because while Hilton isn’t awesome and doesn’t have a particularly great loyalty program it was at least fairly consistent and had a lot of locations. All they had to do was leave things at mediocre but it seems that was too much to ask. Now Hyatt is looking princely just by not hosing guests as badly as the other big players. How sad is that?
Agree completely. I know I should expect this from loyalty programs at this point, but this got me pretty bummed as I’ve been so loyal to Hilton, have over 1 million points saved up with them, and currently go out of my way to stay at Hilton properties. Sigh.