Hilton Honors Guide – Part 1: Hilton Honors Gold status, why it is worth it and how to easily become Gold

On this and the next Monday, we will provide you with a guide on Hilton Honors.

• Hilton Honors Guide – Part 1: Hilton Honors Gold status, why it is worth it and how to easily become Gold
• Hilton Honors Guide – Part 2: How to make best use of your Honors points.

Today we will shortly introduce the Hilton Honors loyalty scheme focusing on the Gold status and provide you with a couple of information how to get the status the easy way.

Hilton Honors loyalty scheme

Hilton Honors has 4 different tier statuses. You can move up the tiers either by accumulating stays, nights or points. We will here focus on the stays needed as it is the easiest way to achieve a status at Hilton for most of the people. http://hiltonhonors3.hilton.com/en/explore/benefits/index.html

Hilton Honors has 4 different status levels with the main benefits attached:

• Member (no stays needed) Complimentary internet access, late check-out
• Silver (after 4 stays) More points
• Gold (after 20 stays) More points, complimentary breakfast, room upgrade
• Diamond (after 30 stays) More points, executive lounge access

Why is the Gold status so valuable

We think that the Hilton Gold Status is one of the best mid tier statuses out there. This mainly is because being a Gold member entitles you AND THE GUEST STAYING WITH YOU, to complimentary breakfast on each an every night you visit a hotel of the Hilton family. Often, the price of breakfast in a Hilton or Conrad hotel is at least 30€. Staying at a Hilton with your partner, you can save up to 60€ per stay if you would have taken breakfast anyway.

Furthermore you also receive a room upgrade (subject to availability). This often includes an upgrade to an executive room, which would give you access to the executive lounge without being a Diamond member.

Hilton Gold Status with credit card

In many countries you can opt in for a Hilton credit card which gives you instant access to the Gold status.

For Germany, Austria and Switzerland for examples, you can opt in for the Hilton credit card here for 48€ per year. Additionally to the Gold status, you receive 5000 welcome points, 10% off for food and drinks at Hilton properties as well as some extra points when you spend money with the credit card.

For only 48€ you should definitely consider this credit card giving you free breakfast and room upgrades on every stay.

Tips to reach Gold status with 20 stays

If you happen to travel often, it is worth considering staying more loyal to one hotel scheme, as this allows you to move up the tiers and earn more points.

There is always the possibility to switch hotels during, for example a 3 nights stay at one city, to transform one stay into 2-3 stays regarding the 20 stays needed at Hilton properties.

Furthermore, if you are short of one or two stays, consider booking a cheap night somewhere in you area (even possible with your points) to reach you goal in terms of stays.

Hilton Gold status with a Status match

Hilton is offering a pretty generous status match option. They match pretty much every mid tier hotel status to Gold.

You will get the Gold status immediately and you can keep it for 90 days without restrictions. If you stay 10 nights within 90 days with Hilton, you can keep the Gold status until 31st March 2021. With 18 nights you would even receive their Diamond status.

So if you are planning a vacation or a couple of stays planned at Hilton within 90 days, it is well worth considering to take advantage of this status match promotion and squeeze in one ore two cheap stays at a Hilton property in your area to reach the 4 stays threshold. In that case you have the Hilton Honors gold status in your pocket for over one year and a half and all the benefits attached to it. We suggest looking for hotel deals on weekends if you need 1-2 additional stays, as the Hilton properties tend to  have the cheapest rates here.

https://statusmatch.hiltonhonors.com/

Just keep in mind that you can only perform one status match in a lifetime for a single account at Hilton. Some sites however suggest it is possible to do multiple ones over the years with different emails and accounts.

I do not have a mid tier status, what should I do?

No problem, just have a look on our article here: How to get Accor Gold Status for 90€ with the ibis Business card and you will be shown how to get a mid-tier hotel status at Accor Le Club for only 90€. You can than use that status to match to Hilton Honors. Just be advised that you shall have at least one stay in an Accor hotel in the past 12 months before requesting a status match at Hilton Honors. The easiest way is to simply book a cheap night at an ibis Etap hotel if you don’t already had a night.

Conclusion

Hilton Honors Gold status is one of the best mid-tier statuses out there. Considering how easy it can be reached with a credit card or status match (for around 50€ or 100€), it is already worth it if you only plan a couple of stays per year at Hilton properties. Furthermore Hilton has a huge net of hotels across all continents so you should be able to find Hilton properties nearly everywhere in the world. List of Hilton brands.