In May, Hilton quietly raised award rates at some of its most premier properties to as much as 200,000 points for a standard night – just the latest hike that makes top-tier hotels and resorts pricier for travelers redeeming points after a pair of devaluations last year. But there's a silver lining.
While many of Hilton's best properties – whether they carry names like Waldorf Astoria and Conrad or are part of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) portfolio – will now cost you more points, we're seeing that even notoriously hard-to-book properties are becoming more readily available at the (now higher) “saver” award rates. In other words, Hilton's recent increases are opening the floodgates for more award space at these once-rare properties.
Case in point: Few properties are harder to book with points than Calala Island, a semi-private all-inclusive Caribbean escape off the coast of Nicaragua. It was nearly impossible to book back when it was part of Hyatt and still incredibly difficult to score when Hilton was charging 150,000 points per night.
But since Hilton raised that rate to 200,000 points per night, we're seeing more availability than ever before – including a smattering of three, four, or five-night stays through the end of the year and every single day from mid-May through June 2026. There's twice as much availability as we're accustomed to seeing.
RiverView Ranch Retreat in Montana is a real unicorn – it's one of the most difficult (and arguably the most valuable, with a cash rate of $5,600 a night) resorts to book in Hilton's entire portfolio. Although award rates rose from 130,000 to 200,000 earlier this year, that painful increase resulted in tons of award space all the way through 2026, triggering this email we sent to our Thrifty Traveler Premium Hotel Alerts subscribers.
Previously, we would only see a few months available at a time … and with only a few dates bookable each month. This was far more widespread.
The same goes for the Hilton Moorea Lagoon Resort and Spa, a deal we sent subscribers just this week. While award rates at this Polynesian property only bumped up from the previous norm of 90,000 to 95,000 points per night, it still fits into this trend: For the first time ever, we saw widespread availability through this year and into summer 2026.
Here are a few other top hotels and resorts in Hilton's portfolio where we're routinely seeing more award space available after the chain's recent devaluation:
- Canaves Oia Suites: 190,000 per night (up from 140,000)
- Hermitage Bay: 190,000 per night (up from 150,000)
- Waldorf Astoria Seychelles Platte Island: 150,000 per night (up from 130,000)
- Waldorf Astoria New York: 150,000 per night
Bottom Line
Many loyalty programs try to spin their award rate increases by saying it'll result in better award availability, then fail to live up to that promise.
While Hilton's increases this year still hurt, we're glad to see signs that it's resulting in easier-to-book availability.
