We've been saying it for years, and we're far from alone here: Hyatt is the best hotel rewards program, bar none.
It's practically gospel in the wide world of all things travel, points, and miles: Hyatt, Hyatt, Hyatt. With nightly rates as low as 3,500 points and $4,000-plus resorts bookable for 45,000 points or less, how could you top that?
In 2024, Hilton has entered the chat.
Sure, free nights typically start around 50,000 Hilton Honors points a night, if not triple that sum … and that alone scares off many travelers. But get past that mental block and you'll find that Hilton points aren't just easier to earn, they can be incredibly valuable, too – with some unique advantages you won't get with Hyatt. The full rollout of hundreds of Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) has only expanded Hilton's portfolio of awesome redemptions.
All the while, it feels like World of Hyatt is sliding backward. Award rates at many of the best all-inclusive resorts and top Park Hyatts have skyrocketed over the past few years. Many other great Hyatt properties have gotten far more difficult to actually book with points, period.
So it begs the question: Is Hyatt still the undisputed king of all hotel chains? Or could Hilton share – maybe even steal – the title?
Maybe I can't convince you – heck, I could barely convince my coworkers to entertain the question. But at the very least, it's time to start the conversation and give Hilton a longer look.
SLH is Truly Excellent
Back when we first learned Hilton would steal hundreds of SLH properties away from Hyatt, it was promising news. But the devil is always in the details: Surely, Hilton could mess this up.
With nearly 400 properties now online, we're calling it: Hilton pulled off a serious coup. The hotel chain didn't just further expand its portfolio, it added tons of amazing properties and reliably solid award redemptions into the mix.
Forget about basic Hilton Garden Inns or stuffy, business-centric properties. Small Luxury Hotels of the World run the gamut from unique inns, resorts, and properties in great locations with complimentary breakfast travelers can book with points.
I could spend 3,000 words (and 300 pictures) on these new options. Let's highlight three – including two I've already booked myself.
My personal new favorite addition is Hermitage Bay, an all-inclusive resort on the Caribbean Island of Antigua that gets incredibly high reviews for its picturesque beaches, service, and dining. This property typically sells for north of $3,000 a night … and yet it's bookable for 130,000 points.
Thanks to Hilton's fifth-night free benefit for travelers with status, I booked a five-night stay this fall for 520,000 Hilton Honors points total.
Way down in the shadow of Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa, there's The Cellars-Hohenort. This recent SLH addition to Hilton is widely regarded as one of the best hotels in the area. With cash, it's not cheap: Expect to pay $600 or more a night.
We booked a two-night stay next February – peak season over summer in South Africa, no less – for just 50,000 points per night.
And then there's a hotel in Istanbul I truly adore after my own stay a few years ago: Tomtom Suites, in the perfect location to explore one of the most electric cities on the planet. But the hotel itself is no slouch, with spacious rooms, stellar service, and a second-to-none Turkish breakfast served daily in the top-floor restaurant.
At 60,000 points a night, I'd book this property for my next trip to Turkey in a heartbeat.
Maybe none of these hotels tickle your fancy or convince you that Hilton redemptions are worthwhile. No problem: There are approximately 397 other SLH properties you can scope out.
Regardless, booking a $16,000 Caribbean resort for 520,000 Hilton points is a phenomenal use of Hilton Honors. Some quick math (divide the full cast cosh by the full points cost) will tell you each Hilton point got me roughly 3 cents in value – a whopping six times the usual 1/2-cent value many sites and travelers typically say Hilton points are worth.
So don't tell me Hilton points aren't worth a thing. You might need to be picky, but getting outsized value from Hilton Honors program is possible. With SLH in the fold, I'd say it's easier than ever.
Hyatt, meanwhile, went the opposite direction. In giving up SLH, Hyatt brought in Mr. and Mrs. Smith: A loose collection of 1,500 luxury hotels and resorts. But Hyatt is pricing all these new additions dynamically based on the cash rate, eliminating any chance of getting outsized value like you once could.
Sold already? First, you'll need to earn Hilton points – and, I'll admit, a lot of them. About that…
Yes, the Points Rates are Higher … But!
Maybe your eyes are popping out of your head seeing some of those award rates above. To quote my co-worker, Gunnar: “How am I ever supposed to earn 120,000 Hilton points?”
But equating Hilton points directly with Hyatt is a mistake. Points and miles are not created equally, with separate scales for redeeming them and different paths to earn them, too. Think of it like currencies of the world: If you lived in Japan and got paid in yen, your paychecks would look a lot bigger than they do here in the states … but so would your trip to the store.
There's no question Hilton's award rates look inflated compared to the likes of Hyatt, which still has an ironclad award chart that determines exactly how many World of Hyatt points you need for each free night.
Hilton doesn't have that. But while the other big hotel chains like IHG and Marriott have fully embraced dynamic pricing – with award rates that change constantly alongside the cash price – Hilton does things a bit differently: It still offers “standard awards” at a set rate for every property. Those are the lowest-and-best rates and the key to getting the best bang for your buck when redeeming Hilton Honors points.
Those “standard award” rates start as low as 10,000 or 15,000 points for a night at a basic hotel in smaller cities … to as much as 150,000 Hilton Honors points for high-end resorts like the Waldorf Astoria in the Maldives.
Yes, that's a lot of points … but they're also easier to earn faster than Hyatt. Let's look at an example.
Say you're booking a three-night, $1,000 hotel stay in New York City and torn between staying at a Hyatt or Hilton property. Assuming you don't have a co-branded credit card or a whiff of status, you'd earn:
- 10 points per dollar with Hilton, or 10,000 Hilton points
- 5 points per dollar with Hyatt, or 5,000 Hyatt points
If you've got status with either hotel chain and put that stay on a co-branded credit card, the gap widens on that same $1,000 hotel stay:
- With Hilton Diamond status and a Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card, you'd earn 34,000 Hilton points
- With Hyatt Discoverist status and a World of Hyatt Credit Card, you'd earn 9,500 Hyatt points
Hilton and Hyatt points simply operate on different scales. You can see that in each hotel's smattering of co-branded credit cards, too.
For example, you can currently earn a 175,000-point bonus on the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card after spending $6,000 within six months. With the World of Hyatt Credit Card, the best you can currently do is 60,000 points … and that requires spending a whopping $15,000 in six months.
All information about the World of Hyatt Credit Card and the Hilton Honors Aspire Card has been collected independently by Thrifty Traveler and has not be verified by the issuers.
Plus, Hilton offers more avenues to keep racking up points with three different co-branded credits (plus another for small business owners). As of publication, Hyatt offers just two: the personal World of Hyatt Card and the *world of hyatt business*.
You can also transfer points from other credit cards to both hotel chains. Hyatt is a Bilt and Chase transfer partner on a 1:1 basis – easily one of the best partners for either program – while Hilton is an Amex transfer partner … on a 1:2 basis, so transferring 10,000 Amex Membership Rewards points normally gets you 20,000 Hilton points.
Even with double the points, we wouldn't start transferring Amex points to Hilton willy nilly. But the addition of SLH and a current 30% transfer bonus to Hilton available through the end of September have me thinking about it differently lately.
Availability is Everything
Low award rates don't mean a thing if you can't actually book them. Redeeming points hinges first and foremost on award availability: Will the hotel (or the chain itself) even let you book a free night with points?
With properties new and old, that's an area where Hilton has been excelling lately. And I've got a perfect example.
Back when it was under the umbrella of Hyatt, booking Calala Island was practically nirvana for points aficionados. This quasi-private island resort off the coast of Nicaragua had become practically impossible to book with World of Hyatt points. Availability wasn't just scarce – aside from a few random patches of four-night stays here and there, it was borderline nonexistent.
But since late July, it's been part of Hilton after the integration of SLH. And we've sent not one but two Hotel Alerts to our Thrifty Traveler Premium members for wide-open availability to book a trip to Calala Island this year or next.
Sure, it costs a lot at 150,000 points a night. But if your heart is set on a visit to Calala Island, isn't paying all those points better than forking over $10,000 or more … or not going at all?
That's an extreme but telling example. Maybe it's recency bias, but award availability at many top Hilton properties across the board seems better than it has in years.
Great properties from New York City to Tokyo to Singapore are often readily bookable at the lowest “standard award” rates. It might not be a cinch to book top-notch properties like the Conrad Bora Bora Nui or Waldorf Astoria locations in the Maldives, Costa Rica, or Cabo, but with some flexibility, it can be done.
That's by design.
“It’s really important to us,” Brad Anderson, the vice president of Hilton Honors, previously told Thrifty Traveler in an interview. “What’s the point of going out and earning all these points if you can’t use them?”
Will you see some blackout dates? Or some exorbitantly priced “Premium Room Rewards” rates for hundreds of thousands, even 1 million-plus points? Sure. But at least Hilton offers an easy-to-use price calendar so you can scroll through a month's worth of availability at a time to find dates that might work.
That's not the case with Hyatt, where seeing the words “Unfortunately, this hotel is not accepting World of Hyatt points or award during those dates” has become more and more common lately. Hyatt may also offer its own Points Calendar, that just shows the award rate: not whether there's availability to actually book that room.
And while top-dollar Hilton redemptions feel within reach, some of the best Hyatt deals have become frustratingly hard to book. Alila Ventana Big Sur, an all-inclusive resort in Coastal California, is virtually impossible to book with points and has been for years. Two prized properties in Japan – the Park Hyatt Kyoto and Andaz Tokyo Toranomon Hills – can be, too. Same goes for the Andaz on Maui's Wailea Beach.
If none of those properties are on your wishlist, this doesn't mean a thing. But for all my fellow points-obsessed weirdos out there – those of us who have been harping on Hyatt for years – it's another sign that the scoreboard is shifting.
Still Big Value at Big Events
The best time to redeem hotel points is when cash prices are high. And while that obviously includes luxe resorts, booking a hotel for the night of a concert, sporting event, or other big event can be a great time to put your points to use.
Despite the bad rap Hilton Honors have gotten over the years, booking award stays for otherwise pricey hotels during big events is an area where Hilton still shines – sometimes, at least. And it doesn't get much bigger than The Eras Tour.
Taylor Swift is rounding out the final leg of her U.S. tour in the coming weeks. With her upcoming stop in Indianapolis, even a basic Home2 Suites downtown was selling for over $1,300 a night.
I booked it for 50,000 Hilton points instead.
Yes, that's a cherry-picked example. But it's not the only one. As we speak, I'm seeing the Hilton Garden Inn Indianapolis Downtown bookable for 50,000 on the night of Taylor's first show – despite cash rates north of $1,000. There are several hotels in New Orleans while Taylor's in town still bookable for 60,000 points apiece.
It's not just a Swiftie phenomenon. A few years back, my co-worker Nick scored a hotel night for just 50,000 points for his trip to the Masters Golf Tournament, just a short drive from the course.
Trust me, I'd love to have booked a Hyatt property in downtown Indianapolis for as few as 8,000 points a night. But here's what I've seen each and every time I've tried.
Does this mean you'll always find a slam dunk deal through Hilton – and come up empty with Hyatt? Hardly. It's always worth checking Hyatt, too. But these days, getting outsized value from your Hilton points during these big events feels like a safer bet.
Free Night Certificates
If you really want to get ahead with your go-to hotel chain, having one of their co-branded credit cards. And getting a free night certificate once a year is the easiest path to justify paying an annual fee.
Both Hyatt and Hilton offer many of their cardholders free night certificates – just for holding the card, meeting a spending threshold, or both. Hilton's free night certificates blow Hyatt out of the water for two reasons:
- Most Hyatt free night certificates only work for category 1-4 properties, which cost 18,000 points per night at most. Not Hilton: From a Hilton Garden Inn in Des Moines, Iowa to the Conrad Maldives Rangali Island at 120,000 points, nothing is off-limits. If you can find standard award availability, you can book it with a Hilton free night certificate.
- Hyatt makes you wait until your second year (and paying a second annual fee) on its card before doling out these free night certificates. With the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card, you get one right off the bat – typically a month or two after opening your account.
That makes Hilton's free night certificates both easier to get and far more valuable than what you can do from a Hyatt card. Combined with the fact that you can now use these certificates any night of the week (not just weekends, as in the past) and get one of them in year 1 with the Hilton Aspire, there's a ton of potential value here.
Fifth-Night Free? Fifth-Night Free
This is nothing new either, but it sets Hilton apart.
So long as you've got some level of Hilton status (trust me – it's easier than it sounds), you get the fifth-night free when redeeming Hilton Honors points. That's right: Stay five nights, pay for four.
That can result in huge savings for those big, bucket-list hotel redemptions in destinations like Bora Bora, the Maldives, Europe, South Africa … the list goes on and on. So long as you book at least five consecutive nights – all booked with Hilton Honors points, mind you – you'll get the fifth-night free.
Hyatt offers no such benefit.
Having Hilton status might sound like a big catch, but it's not.
From the no-annual-fee *Hilton Honors* to the top-dollar Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card, each and every Hilton Amex card unlocks automatic status. But you don't even need a Hilton card: Among the laundry list of Amex Platinum benefits, cardholders with *amex platinum* can activate complimentary Hilton Honors Gold status.
Easy Status & Perks
I can hear the Hyatt fans from here: “What about my Globalist status?!”
And you're right. It's the most rewarding hotel status out there, and it's not even close. If you can work your way up the ranks – staying 60 nights during the year or accumulating 100,000 base points (through hotel spending) – nothing beats Hyatt Globalist status.
… but that's a big if. For the rest of us, that's simply not realistic. And it's far, far easier to get worthwhile, money-saving perks through status on Hilton stays than it is with Hyatt.
For better or worse, no hotel chain makes it easier to unlock instant status than Hilton:
- Whether you have *amex platinum* or *Hilton Surpass*, you can get automatic Hilton Gold status.
- Hilton's Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card comes with top-tier Diamond Status.
You could tell me that neither Hilton Gold or even Diamond status holds a candle to Hyatt Globalist status … and you'd be absolutely right. There's a catch-22 here: With so many travelers with Hilton status out there, it degrades the special treatment. Complimentary upgrades are spotty even on a good day, and early check-in and late checkout is never a sure thing. The list of complaints goes on.
But there are also some ironclad benefits that pay off immediately. At the top of the list: Anyone with Hilton Gold status or higher gets complimentary breakfast or food and beverage credits for two. Hilton has swapped in a broader (but less-lucrative) food and beverage credit at U.S. properties for elite members, while complimentary breakfast is still available abroad.
At some properties, especially in Europe, free breakfast can easily save you up to $70 per day. At the Conrad Bora Bora Nui, four days of free breakfast saved us more than $400!
Read more: How the Hilton Aspire Card Saved Me $866 in Bora Bora
Whether you're a fairly frequent Hilton guest or just have one big trip coming up, Hilton Gold status alone can pay dividends. Stay laser-focused on Hyatt, and you'll only unlock complimentary breakfast once you reach that top tier of Globalist.
That takes a lot more work than it does with Hilton.
Bottom Line
Did I convince you? Did I convince myself?
The answers may well be “Not even close” and “I'm not sure.” None of this negates the undeniable value of World of Hyatt program. To this day, it remains one of the best ways to use Chase points – if not the best, period.
But if you ask me, Hilton is trending upward and Hyatt is (seemingly) sliding the opposite way. It might be time to challenge your preconceived notions about Hilton. It might not be better than Hyatt … but there's no question in my mind it has gotten better.