Here’s an exciting development for free night certificates issued in conjunction with Hilton Honors co-branded credit cards.
In this post:
See free night certificates in your Hilton Honors account
Hilton Honors has the most valuable free night certificates of any hotel group, since they can be redeemed at virtually any property, and you can earn these with three different Hilton Honors credit cards.
Historically members who earned free night certificates were emailed when one was deposited in their account. They didn’t appear anywhere online, though, and you had to call to book. That has finally changed, at least partly.
If you have any free night certificates issued with a Hilton credit card, you should now see them when you log into your Hilton Honors account:
- This only seems to work on the Hilton website, and not the app
- Just scroll down past your basic account info, and you’ll see a section that shows your free night awards
- You can see how you earned the free night certificates, when it’s valid until, and what the last four digits of the certificate number are; as you can see, I earned my current one with the promotion for spending $8,000 on a Hilton card
It’s also cool that there’s a tab for “used rewards,” so that you can see where you’ve redeemed them in the past. I’m quite pleased to have used my last four at the Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos Pedregal, Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills, and Conrad Bora Bora Nui.
You still have to call to redeem awards
While you can now see free night awards on Hilton’s website, you do still have to call Hilton Honors to redeem them for a stay. While it would be nice if this functionality were made possible online, the truth is that I love Hilton Honors free night certificates and don’t mind spending five minutes on the phone to redeem one of these for a stay at a $1,000+ per night hotel.
Hilton Honors free night certificates are just so incredibly valuable that picking up the phone is hardly a huge burden. For that matter, just easily being able to see how many certificates I have and when they expire is already very useful. In the past I’ve had to search my email inbox.
Bottom line
You can now see Hilton Honors free night awards online, including the expiration dates, how they were earned, and the last four digits of the certificate numbers. While you still have to call to book, it’s nice to at least be able to easily see all of this information in one place.
Anyone else love this development with Hilton free night certificates?
(Tip of the hat to US Credit Card Guide)
Log in, click your name at the top right, then member home. If it is not shown, then select member benefits and then check again.
https://www.hilton.com/en/hilton-honors/guest/my-account/
Then just scroll down...
Could you add more detail as to where, there are many menus and submenus where this could be. Activity? Profile? Member Home?
I was able to see the free night certificates for both my wife and myself when this first went live. As of now (December 2021) I am no longer seeing this section displayed. Anyone else no longer seeing this section?
Hopefully this is just a glitch that will be resolved.
Me too, the Hilton account page seems to be 'updating' as it won't show me status either. "We're updating your Hilton Honors tier tracker. Please check back later."
Same here - it's gone away, inexplicably. Having to call in to use the award is a throwback from 20 years ago, as clearly Hilton is counting on 'spoilage'. Shameful.
Has anybody ever had any success using these certificates at the Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos Pedregal. I see the cost per night/ points value is incredibly high.
Yes - you have to be flexible in your travel dates and book EARLY (like 10-12 months out). My wife and I did 10/24/21 - 10/28/21 on certificates. Hilton's "Flexible Dates" calendar was very helpful - select 1 night stays and view by month to (hopefully) find 1 or more 95K "standard room rate" availability.
This is timely news as I see that one of my certificates is expiring in a few weeks. Time to throw a quick trip together.
Definitely about time this did this. Mine are due to expire in early January. Any chance these are getting extended again? It is a shame I am going to have to force a trip in there just to keep from losing these.
Thanks for the tip. I have one from my Hilton business Amex card and forgot about it. Sure enough, it now shows up online and has a 12/31/2022 expiration date.
Hurray! I suspect thousands of these have gone unused because they're not viewed in our accounts. It's about time!
It's about time. I worry about the hotel and airline industry. The web infrastructure they use all seem like it's from the same cruddy vendor whose design team don't actually stay in anything beyond holiday inn. They just don't understand service and different ways of doing business besides checking in. The hotel/airlines don't invest in those proper jobs. They complain its too expensive but they lose out on business because of that. They clearly use...
It's about time. I worry about the hotel and airline industry. The web infrastructure they use all seem like it's from the same cruddy vendor whose design team don't actually stay in anything beyond holiday inn. They just don't understand service and different ways of doing business besides checking in. The hotel/airlines don't invest in those proper jobs. They complain its too expensive but they lose out on business because of that. They clearly use outsourced developers and application designers who never travels and probably get paid $2000/year. This is why the old fools in charge needs to let go and let smarter IT centric people make better software. Right now you can ask me to pick any airline and I can tear the website apart on its various issues without even reading a line of code.
Finally! I have complained to Hilton several times about this. Calling to reserve is fine. Having to call just to check credits a pain... Great improvement?
I saw this my account and also love it
Finally! Unlike Ryan I don't have a memory to keep that in my head! Hopefully Award Wallet will update like the other chains soon.
Still waiting (a year later) for the update to the system to inform members of lifetime status. I am very curious as I have over 200K status points in 2021 alone given the CC spend counts toward lifetime diamond status.
I just called in to reserve 2 of my certificates. Yes, its a hassle to call in. No I don't mind. The lady I worked with was lovely. She even reminded me that the city where I was reserving had some more upscale options to the hotel I was reserving. I appreciated that. She reserved the room I wanted and shared her excitement in my trip. Yes, using it online would be easier, but I...
I just called in to reserve 2 of my certificates. Yes, its a hassle to call in. No I don't mind. The lady I worked with was lovely. She even reminded me that the city where I was reserving had some more upscale options to the hotel I was reserving. I appreciated that. She reserved the room I wanted and shared her excitement in my trip. Yes, using it online would be easier, but I enjoyed the interaction and the tips, and I will really enjoy the free two night stay in one of my favorite hotels in one of my favorite cities.
A very minor improvement. Hilton needs to make these redeemable online. Hyatt and Hilton allow online redemption of card-issuer free nights, specifically including Amex-issued free night certificates with Marriott.
Whoops, "Hyatt and Marriott."
I was excited at the headline, thinking it meant we could now redeem online. Seeing the award online but not being able to do anything with that, is useless and quite silly. I don't have any problem remembering that I have certs to use and can quickly check the exact date in my Hilton email folder.
At times it can take more than 5 minutes depending on how busy they are. Some agents are...
I was excited at the headline, thinking it meant we could now redeem online. Seeing the award online but not being able to do anything with that, is useless and quite silly. I don't have any problem remembering that I have certs to use and can quickly check the exact date in my Hilton email folder.
At times it can take more than 5 minutes depending on how busy they are. Some agents are more efficient than others, too. The website is still faster.
Sure Hilton certs are great and I won't stop collecting them just because I have to call, but it's still an unnecessary annoyance. I get why they do it, hoping for spoilage (and I'm sure they get a lot of it overall). But when crappy IHG lets me redeem online, it isn't a good look for Hilton IMHO.
I have a two certificates set to expire on January 3rd. Any guesses on if Hilton will be extending the dates again since travel has been so tough with Covid restrictions?
Heh I just literally asked that question. I am going to venture a guess that with the holiday season and hotels booking up and little time left to use these that many of us won't be able to redeem them for good value.