Hilton confirms that free night award expiration dates are being extended

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In the past few days, Hilton has made it possible for Honors members to view full details of their free night awards on its website, and some people have noticed that the expiration dates of those awards have been extended. Up until today, Hilton hadn’t passed comment on these changes but we now have confirmation that a number of extensions are being processed.

Hilton extends select free night award expiration dates

Some free night awards are seeing their expiration states extended by up to a year. Here’s what Hilton has now confirmed:

• Free Weekend Night Rewards issued through June 30, 2020 have been extended and will now expire July 1, 2022.
• Free Weekend Night Rewards issued between July 1 – December 31, 2020 expire 24 months from the date of issuance.
• Free Weekend Night Rewards issued between January 1 – December 31, 2021 will expire December 31, 2022.
• Free Weekend Night Rewards issued between January 1 – December 31, 2022 will expire 12 months from the date of issuance.

Don’t forget that although these awards are called “free weekend night rewards”, all the awards issued in 2021 as well as those that will be issued in 2022, are redeemable on any night of the week.

A reminder of other positive moves by Hilton

Elite Status Extensions

All Hilton Honors Elites are now guaranteed to keep their current status through 31 March 2023 after Hilton confirmed that all elite statuses would be extended for the third time.

Lower Status Requirements For 2022

Ordinarily, this is what Hilton’s elite status requirements look like:

• Silver – 10 nights or 4 stays or 25,000 base points
• Gold – 40 nights or 20 stays or 75,000 base points
• Diamond – 60 Nights or 30 stays or 120,000 base points

In 2022, earning Hilton elite status won’t be quite as easy as it has been in 2021 but the status requirements are still going to be noticeably lower than they normally are:

• Silver – 7 nights or 3 stays or 17,500 base points
• Gold – 28 nights or 14 stays or 52,500 base points
• Diamond – 42 Nights or 21 stays or 84,000 base points

These targets represent a 30% decrease on the targets set outside of a global pandemic.

Milestone Bonus Targets Reduced For 2022

As well as lowering the thresholds for elite status in 2022, Hilton has also lowered the milestone bonus requirements (albeit not by as much as the thresholds were lower in 2021).

In 2022 these are the targets that guests will be set:

• Earn 10,000 bonus points after earning 30 elite nights (40 nights usually required)
• Earn 10,000 bonus points for every 10 elite nights earned after 30 elite nights
• Earn a one-time bonus of 30,000 points after earning 60 elite nights (no change from normal).

Elite Nights Will Roll Over

As we saw at the end of 2020, all Hilton elite nights earned this year will be rolled over and will count towards the 2022 elite status qualification thresholds. Importantly, nights that were rolled over from 2020 into 2021 will not be rolled over into 2022 so only nights earned in 2021 will roll over.

Elite Status Gifting Threshold Lowered

In 2022, Hilton Honors Diamond elite members will be able to gift Gold status to an Honors member of their choice when they earn 40 elite nights (usually 60 elite nights) and this elite status gift can be upgraded to Diamond status when 70 elite nights are earned (usually 100 elite nights).

Hilton Honors Points Expirations Extended

Hilton has confirmed that points expirations will continue to be paused and that no points will expire before 31 December 2022.

Hilton Honors Amex Benefits Extended

• All points earned by spending on Amex co-branded Hilton Honors cards (including bonus points) will continue to count as Base Points on eligible purchases through 31 December 2022. These points will count toward Elite tier qualification, including Lifetime Diamond Status.
• As mentioned earlier, all Free Weekend Night Reward certificates issued in 2021 and 2022 will be useable on any night of the week.

Bottom Line

We had a lot of good news out of Hilton back in September when we were told about the elite status extensions, the lower elite status targets for 2022, the extension to Amex benefits, and all the other good things that I’ve covered above. Now, we’ve also had confirmation that select free night awards have had their expiration dates extended yet again to Hilton Honors members yet more time to plan a trip in which they can use them.