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Hilton has now confirmed that 2026 will see it introduce a few big changes to its Hilton Honors rewards program and now that the details have had a couple of days to sink in, I thought I’d take a look at what I think (if anything) these changes will really mean for Hilton fans.
The key changes in brief
Diamond elite status will no longer be the highest tier of Hilton status from 2026. That honor will go to the newly conceived Diamond Reserve status which will require 40 stays or 80 nights as well as $18,000 of eligible spending/year with Hilton.
The requirements for Diamond elite and Gold elite status are being reduced:
Starting at the end of 2026, extra elite nights (over and above the elite nights needed for elite status) will no longer roll over.
Diamond Reserve is the new top-tier
In exchange for spending at least $18,000 in a year and completing 40 stays or earning 80 elite night credits, Hilton will award you with its new top-tier elite status – Diamond Reserve.
So what does Diamond Reserve status get you?
Well, not that much really:
- Guaranteed 4pm late checkout at every brand.
- 120% bonus points on every stay.
- Complimentary access to all hotel lounges including the Premium Clubs found in select Waldorf Astoria and Conrad properties.
- One Confirmable Upgrade Reward (CUR) per year which can be used at the time of booking for stays of up to 7 nights.
- A dedicated customer service line (open 24/7).
For a status level that requires someone to spend at least $18,000, that doesn’t seem like a particularly impressive list of benefits.
Sure, the confirmable suite upgrade will be a very useful benefit to be given, but Hilton will only give you one of these per year while Hyatt loyalists can earn up to four such upgrades without facing a minimum spending requirement.
Note: IHG One Rewards and Marriott Bonvoy also allow their members to earn multiple upgrade awards every year without imposing a minimum spending target, but both types of awards work slightly differently to the Hilton and Hyatt upgrades and so aren’t directly comparable.
The guaranteed 4pm check out will also be very welcome, but again, this is just another example of a benefit that’s already offered elsewhere and for less. Hyatt Globalists, Marriott Bonvoy Titanium elites, and Marriott Bonvoy Platinum elites all get a guaranteed 4pm check-out on all stays (except at resorts), and these are all elite statuses which don’t impose a minimum spending requirement.
The 120% bonus base points on all stays is nice, but given how dramatically the cost of Hilton awards has risen in the past 18 months, it’s hard to get particularly excited about this.
At best, giving a 120% bonus to someone who is currently earning a 100% bonus on their stays is just going to keep their bonus in line with award cost inflation, so Diamond Reserve elites are not really getting a big boost.
The value of their benefit is staying still rather than being eroded and that’s not really a big selling point for a rewards program, is it?
“Earn Diamond Reserve status and your benefits won’t be devalued” wouldn’t really be a positive slogan for Hilton’s new top-tier, would it?
Overall, I’m underwhelmed by Hilton’s new top-tier elite status (in case you hadn’t already noticed!) and I’m struggling to see how its benefits are going to tempt anyone who wasn’t already spending $18,000 per year to up their spending significantly.
Yes, if you’re someone who typically makes 40+ stays or who earns 80+ elite night credits and who also spends around $17,000 per year with Hilton, you may consider spending a bit more money to earn Diamond Reserve status, but you’d have to be a little mad (or be spending someone else’s money) to think that it’s worth spending thousands more than you would normally spend per year just to get a single-stay suite upgrade, access to a few more lounges (potentially), a few more points, and a guaranteed 4pm check-out on all stays.
Winners & losers
As is the often the case when we see changes to a rewards program, there are going to be winners and losers here.
The winners
The first group of winners will be the Hilton loyalists who usually make 40 stays or credit 80 nights to the Hilton Honors program and who also usually spend at least $18,000/year with Hilton.
Possibly with the exception of upgrade priority, this group of people hasn’t, up until now, been afforded any more benefits than someone who pays $550/year for the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card (which gives cardholders Diamond elite status as part of its benefits package).
Now, however, this group stands alone atop the Hilton Honors pyramid and will enjoy things like a guaranteed 4pm check-out, 20% more bonus points than Diamond elites on each stay, access to all Hilton lounges, and an annual Confirmable Upgrade Reward (CUR) per year which can be used at the time of booking for stays of up to 7 nights.
As I’ve already suggested, this doesn’t seem like a lot more than what Diamond elites currently get, but it’s more than this group has been getting up until now and that makes them winners in this latest shake up.
The second group of winners will be the Hilton loyalists who don’t have access to credit cards that offer some level of Hilton Honors status and who have found it tricky to earn Gold or Diamond elite status on a regular basis.
Going forward, the lowered requirements for Hilton’s second and third tier elite levels should mean that this group has more chance of locking in some kind of meaningful elite status and that means that the upcoming changes to the Honors program will, for them, be a net positive.
The losers
The first group of losers will the people who hold Hilton Honors elite status courtesy of one (or more) of the credit cards they hold.
Holders of these cards may not be seeing any changes to the elite benefits that they enjoy (for the time being, Hilton isn’t making any changes to the benefits offered by the legacy elite status levels), but holders of the American Express Aspire Card (which offers Diamond elite status as one of its benefits) will no longer be top of the Hilton food chain, and with Diamond and Gold status about to become easier to earn, these cardholders can probably expect to face increased competition for key benefits (e.g. upgrades) as well as busier hotel lounges thanks to an expanded pool of elites.
The second group of losers will be the Hilton loyalists who, historically, have earned Hilton Gold or Hilton Diamond elite status organically and with relative ease.
This group, just like the credit card holders group, isn’t getting any new benefits, but is likely to now see increased competition for key benefits as the pool of Gold and Diamond elites is expanded courtesy of the lower elite status requirements coming in 2026.
The third group of losers will be Hilton’s Lifetime Diamond elites. This is a group of people who have earned Diamond elite status for at least ten of the years in which they have been Hilton Honors members and who have credited at least 1,000 nights to Hilton’s rewards program during that time.
This group isn’t getting anything added to their list of benefits, but their status will no longer be top-tier (Hilton hasn’t created a Lifetime Diamond Reserve tier that they can be bumped up to or earn) and just like all the other “losers”, they’re probably about to see increased competition for upgrades, busier hotel lounges and less “special” service now that they will have Diamond Reserve elites sitting above them.
Related: Is Lifetime Elite status with hotels worth aiming for?
General thoughts
It’s hard to say if there will be more winners or losers following these changes, but if pressed, I’d guess that there will be more losers than winners in this Hilton Honors shake-up.
You could argue that the number of people who will soon be able to enjoy elevated Hilton status thanks to the lowered requirements will balance out the number of people who will be disappointed to have yet more elites with whom to compete for key benefits, but I think there’s another aspect to this that we have to consider.
An increased number of elites doesn’t only mean that more people will be competing for some of the better benefits, it also means that there will be more guests entitled to benefits that actually cost hotels money.
There will be more Gold elites expecting some form of complimentary breakfast (or a credit towards breakfast) and there will be more Diamond elites mopping up whatever freebies are on offer at the various hotel lounges around the world, and all things remaining equal, this will probably raise costs.
An increase in costs isn’t something hotels like to see, and that means that there’s a chance that we’ll see cuts to services to bring costs back into line.
The food and drinks in the lounges may get worse (it’s hard to imagine that would be possible in the case of some lounges!), hotels could tighten up on how many late check-outs they offer, and we could see the Gold breakfast benefit “enhanced”.
It’s not hard to imagine a world in which fewer items are included in the complimentary Gold breakfast offering or a world in which the concept of a monetary “credit towards breakfast” rather than a complimentary breakfast is exported to more of the world’s regions.
In fact, given that Hilton Gold elite is about to become a 3rd tier status, it wouldn’t surprise me if Hilton decided to bring in a few more changes ahead of the 2027 elite year and if we found that those changes included one which completely removed complimentary breakfasts and breakfast credits for Gold elites.
There’s a bit of jeopardy for Diamond elites as well.
With Hilton going out of its way to point out that Diamond Reserve members will have access to all hotel lounges, that sends out a signal that suggests that Diamond elites may soon see their lounge access privileges cut and that, perhaps, access to the more premium lounges (usually found in Conrad and Waldorf Astoria properties) will be restricted to Diamond Reserve members only.
That would not go down well!
Bottom line
Overall, you could argue that with no benefits being taken away, this isn’t a bad set of changes that Hilton is introducing, but while it’s true that the changes could have been worse, I still think they’re going to be a net negative for most Hilton elites.
If you’re in the group of people who will suddenly be able to hit the dizzy heights of Hilton elite status thanks to the lowered requirements, you’re probably feeling quite happy right now, but with yet more people now competing for key benefits, I expect that even this group will come to see that what these changes will ultimately give us is a watered down set of benefits and possibly even poorer quality benefits all round.
What do you think of the upcoming changes to Hilton Honors? Are they a net positive or net negative for you?
