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My mother and father are visiting this week, and as per usual, they are staying at a Hilton.
They are very loyal to Hilton and had been Gold Status with Hilton for a while. The benefits to having this status are:
- Quick Reservations & Check-In based on room preferences
- Late Checkout
- Express Checkout
- Complimentary In-Room, High-Speed Internet Access during stays
- eCheck-in: Select your room and check in 24 hours in advance at participating properties
And for the Hilton properties, you can choose to get a breakfast instead of check-in amenity points. My parents always go for the breakfast.
Except now, even though they are still loyal to Hilton, they haven’t qualified for status this year. This trip, it wasn’t so bad because they go to this Hilton location a lot and the desk clerk still slipped them free breakfast. But what can they do in the future?
The Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve Credit Card offers a signup bonus of two free nights (after $2,500 spend), which is nice, but they should apply to the Citi Hilton Reserve Card for the Hilton Gold status. I lost mine from shifting my loyalty elsewhere, and a fee of $95 a year wasn’t too bad to have a second tier elite status.
Why is it worth the $95 for my parents?
First, they get free wifi which can cost anywhere from $10 to $20 at hotels per day. If they stay five nights at a Hilton, they can recoup their yearly credit card costs.
Second, they really value having breakfast in the hotel in the morning. Because of the generous clerk in their hotel today, they are getting an $18 breakfast comped for each of them each day. For their two day stays, this is a savings of $72 already.
So, my advice to my mother and father today was to go for the card. Even though they aren’t staying enough to hit elite benefits anymore, they are definitely staying enough to save money by getting this credit card.
Disclaimer: I do not get any affiliate credit from this card, but if I did, I would have them change the money into pennies so I could swim through it like Scrooge McDuck. Well, maybe in a kiddie pool. Okay, I’d put the pennies in a jar and shake it so I could hear it jingle.
Old news. This has been written about several times prior to your blog.
@NA – why did you feel that you needed to post anything? Particularly a comment like that. If you didn’t like it, just move on.
@Heather – what’s wrong with N/A’s comment? If you can’t bother posting something halfway original, why bother at all?
I guess N/A and I are both tired of bloggers “mailing it in” just to write something.
Hmmm…… I thought they have changed now to no annual fee. I was closing my account due to my moving overseas so I was explaining to the account specialist that I really did not want to pay for a card that I would not use. He mentioned that the card would now have no annual fee. Since I am not paying an annual fee any more and I would occasionally travel to the states, staying at the hotel the company booked for me (typically Hilton), I figured to keep it for a bit.
Maybe they transferred you to the other Citi product? They make two Hilton cards!
What about staying at other properties, even within the same brand, which are often less expensive and which offer free breakfast/wifi anyways? That’s my approach and it seems much easier than applying for yet another CC that I might only get value from a couple days annually.
That’s a really good point. If you have no loyalty preferences, you should. And some Hilton/Hyatt properties offer this too if you DO have loyalty (Hampton Inn, Hyatt Place).
My parents are very loyal to specific properties within Hilton, not just the Hilton brand, which makes the benefits worth it–when you also value the loyalty.
But for someone with no preferences, you shouldn’t get the card just in case you happen to stay at a Hilton. In that case, you should stay at the properties that come with the benefits already.