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Starting tomorrow, Hilton will be increasing the number of points needed to redeem AXON awards with your Hilton HHonors points. AXON awards are given to those that have one of the two American Express co-branded Hilton credit cards and are discounted points that are available for reservations in multiples of 4-night stays.
The discounted points needed for a free night are pretty good, but unfortunately those are increasing pretty drastically. In the past, these discounted points were only for category 5-7 hotels, however, due to the additional of new Hilton category hotels, they’ve also added these award redemption options to category 8-10 hotels as well.
Number of points needed for a 4-night stay pre-June 15, 2013:
- Category 5: 125,000 points
- Category 6: 125,000 points
- Category 7: 145,000 points
Number of points needed for a 4-night stay starting June 15, 2013:
- Category 5: 130,000 points (32,500 points/night)
- Regular rate for point redemption: 30,000-40,000 points/night
- Category 6: 160,000 points (40,000 points/night)
- Regular rate for point redemption: 30,000-50,000 points/night
- Category 7: 190,000 points (47,5000 points/night)
- Regular rate for point redemption: 30,000-60,000 points/night
- Category 8: 220,000 points (55,000 points/night)
- Regular rate for point redemption: 40,000-70,000 points/night
- Category 9: 260,000 points (65,000 points/night)
- Regular rate for point redemption: 50,000-80,000 points/night
- Category 10: 300,000 points (75,000 points/night)
- Regular rate for point redemption: 70,000-95,000 points/night
So you can see that the AXON awards are no where near as good as they once were. Additionally, now that Hilton has seasonal rates, the low season (and sometimes even mid-season rate) is lower than the AXON award rate, making this redemption useless.
However, if you know of a potential upcoming stay where an AXON award would save you points, make sure to book TODAY as the new award chart will go into place tomorrow. You can check out how many points an award stay will be by using this points search tool provided by Hilton. Also remember, Silver, Gold, and Diamond elite status members can get a free night when booking a Standard Room Reward stay of five or more consecutive nights. Getting status is super easy due to the various status challenges Hilton offers and with their credit cards.
Unfortunately AXON award reservations cannot be made online and you must call Hilton reservations (1-800-920-5649). DO NOT FORGET!
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I hope Hilton realizes how dumb they are and change back to the old tiers.
@grant – I couldn’t agree more!
Booked mine the other day, then rebooked it to another hotel in same city after a standard room came up just in time…
If a hotel is now in category 8 post-devaluation, can you book at the old category 7 AXON rate?
@nicole – unfortunately not.
Is this only applicable to current Category 5, 6 and 7 properties or the level 5, 6 and 7s under the old valuations?
@chris – current category 5, 6, and 7 hotels.