I was just looking up hotels in Tokyo over the past couple of days, and unexpectedly Hilton slipped in a devaluation right under our noses. The Conrad Tokyo and Conrad Osaka, which had been 95,000 points, have both gone up, to 100,000 and 105,000 points respectively. I checked around, and online reports say a number of other high-end Hilton award properties have also recently seen 5%-15% increases. That’s really bad news for anyone hoping to travel during winter break.
Hilton stopped publishing an award chart a long time ago, and it also doesn’t have fixed categories, so if it wants to raise prices, there’s really nothing we can do about it. The good news, though, is that these luxury hotels already have fairly high cash rates, and there are usually another 10%-15% in taxes and fees on top. For example, a $760 room at the Conrad Tokyo comes to $850 after taxes. If it only costs 100,000 points, you’re still getting about 0.85 c/p in redemption value, which is actually pretty solid.
Right now Hilton is also running a 100% bonus on purchased points, which works out to buying points at 0.5 c/p.
