Delta SkyMiles & Hilton Honors Reciprocal Promotions

This spring, we saw a promotion rewarding Delta SkyMiles members for staying at Hilton properties. Now we’ve seen a promotion introduced that rewards Hilton Honors members for flying with Delta, as flagged by AwardWallet. I wanted to go over the details of the new offer, and also recap the details of the other offer that was introduced some time back.

Get rewarded with Hilton Honors for Delta flights

Thanks to a promotion, you can earn 1,000 Hilton Honors bonus points per one-way premium cabin ticket on Delta:

• You must register between June 19 and July 19, and you must also register prior to booking any eligible flights (so any previously booked flight wouldn’t qualify)
• You must then travel between June 19 and September 19, 2024
• You can be awarded for each one-way itinerary in Comfort+, Premium Select, First Class, or Delta One
• You can take advantage of this promotion up to six times, for a total of up to 6,000 bonus Hilton Honors points
• Bonus Hilton Honors points will post to your account within six to eight weeks of an eligible flight
• There’s no opportunity cost to taking advantage of this, as you’ll still earn Delta SkyMiles as usual

This promotion is better than nothing, but that’s about all I can say. Personally I value Hilton Honors points at 0.5 cents each, so this is like an incremental return of ~$5 per eligible Delta itinerary.

Get rewarded with Delta SkyMiles for Hilton stays

While it’s no longer open for registration, I also wanted to recap the details of the other promotion that’s currently available, rewarding Delta SkyMiles members for Hilton stays:

• Registration was required between April 6 and May 6, 2024, and needed to happen prior to booking an eligible stay, so you can no longer register
• You must then stay between April 6 and July 7, 2024
• You can take advantage of this promotion up to three times, for a total of up to 3,000 bonus Delta SkyMiles
• Bonus Delta SkyMiles will post to your account within six to eight weeks of an eligible stay
• The terms suggest that a stay needs to be booked in USD (as the currency) in order to be eligible, though there are no additional geographic restrictions
• There’s no opportunity cost to taking advantage of this, as you’ll still earn Hilton Honors points as usual

While this isn’t an earth shattering promotion, it’s better than nothing. For many, it’s an easy opportunity to earn 3,000 bonus Delta SkyMiles. Personally I value Delta SkyMiles at ~1.1 cents each, so this is like an incremental return of ~$11 per eligible stay. Keep in mind that this can be combined with Hilton Honors’ global promotion.

Could we see a closer Hilton & Delta partnership?

Frankly these promotions seem rather random in isolation, and I can’t help but wonder if this might be the start of something bigger.

It’s common to see partnerships between airlines and hotels, as we see that American AAdvantage and World of Hyatt have a partnership, and United MileagePlus and Marriott Bonvoy have a partnership. So it’s logical enough that we could eventually see Delta SkyMiles and Hilton Honors have a partnership.

Could these promotions be intended to see if consumer behavior is at all impacted by offers between the programs, or to be able to share customer data between the companies? I guess only time will tell…

Bottom line

Hilton Honors and Delta SkyMiles are currently running two reciprocal promotions. Hilton Honors members can earn bonus points for booking premium cabin Delta tickets, while Delta SkyMiles members can earn bonus miles for Hilton stays (though that offer is no longer open for registration).

While these aren’t the most exciting offers on earth, they’re better than nothing, so you might as well register. I’m curious to see if this is the start of closer cooperation between the two companies.

What do you make of these Delta & Hilton promotions?