Good afternoon everyone. I recently redeemed my Hilton Free Weekend Night Certificate which I got for spending $10,000 on my Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve Credit Card within a card member year. This post will show you how to search for available award space and redeem your Free Weekend Night Certificate.
You should receive a similar email from Hilton roughly 4-6 weeks after your annual fee is billed to your Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve Credit Card (assuming you met the $10,000 spending requirement). The Free Weekend Night Certificate looks like this and is linked to your Hilton HHonors number. If you accidentally delete or misplace this email, you should be able to call Hilton and they will be able to see your Free Weekend Night Certificate. You must book travel and complete your stay between the issue date and expiration date. There is no way to extend the Free Weekend Night Certificate even by 1 day.
Before you call and book your Free Weekend Night, you need to search for award availability. You can only redeem your Free Weekend Night Certificate at a hotel that has a standard room available. Hilton considers the weekend a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday night stay. An easy way to view if a standard room is available, is to check the number of Hilton HHonors Points required for the night you want to stay. If the stay ends with “,000 HHonors Points,” then it is a standard room. If it ends with random numbers, like “,839 HHonors Points,” that means a standard room in not available, only a premium room is available.
To verify, the Hampton Inn Santa Cruz only has a premium room available that costs 60,839 Hilton HHonors Points.
In comparison, the Hilton Santa Cruz has a standard room available that costs 30,000 Hilton HHonors Points.
Instead of searching one day at a time to find a standard room available, go back to the Hilton search bar and click Use Flexible Dates.
You will now be able to view the award availability for each hotel, just click View Available Dates.
On the left, is the Hampton Inn Santa Cruz that has a premium room available. If you look at the other dates below, you will see standard rooms are available. On the right, is the Hilton Santa Cruz.
At the Hilton Santa Cruz, the points required increases from 30,000 to 50,000 Hilton HHonors Points per night. This hotel is adjusting its rate for the summer months, but standard rooms are still available for all days that show “,000 points.” If you see a date with random numbers of Hilton HHonors Points required, that is a premium room.
At this point, you can call Hilton (1-800-446-6677) and tell them you want to redeem your Hilton Free Weekend Night Certificate that you received from being a Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve Credit Card member. They will transfer you to the correct department. Just tell the rep which property you want to stay at and which date you want to stay, and they will book the reservation for you. The confirmation email looks like any other paid or award reservation.
So why did I waste my Free Weekend Night Certificate at the Hilton Santa Cruz, when the cost was only 30,000 points per night? My certificate was expiring on June 10, so I had only 2 weekends left to use the certificate. I was searching for pet friendly hotels so we could bring our Australian Shepherd puppy and the Hilton was the only hotel in Santa Cruz that allowed pets. The property is about 4 miles from the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, a few minutes up the hill. The property is pretty nice and the free breakfast and WiFi were very good. I would stay here again if I were going to Santa Cruz.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. Have a great day everyone.
Do they charge for your pet?
They should charge a non refundable pet fee, but not all properties enforce that policy. It depends on the hotel.
Is the bonus triggered after 10k spend annually or 10k spent at Hilton properties annually? Also if it worth putting 10k on this card instead of the Hilton Reserve or Surpass which earn more points?
This feature is only available for the Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve Credit Card. You still earn all base points, depending where you use the credit card. The $10,000 spend is any charge you out on your credit card.
My confusion grant, The Citi Gold card has a similar offer but it’s 10k spend at Hilton properties. https://www.citi.com/credit-cards/credit-card-details/detail.do?ID=hilton-hhonors-visa-signature-card
Oh gotcha. I didn’t know that offer existed. It would be extremely difficult to spend $10,000 at Hilton hotels, unless I was a business traveler.
Any experience with changing the newly processed reservation directly with the hotel???
Depends which type of change you want. It also depends if you are outside the change/cancellation time period. What did you have in mind?
Change of the date only. Let’s say it expires in 2 weeks, so we’ll make a reservation in Venice for this weekend and change it for the end of the month when we actually get there.
I don’t think that will work. The hotel gets paid by Hilton when you use the Free Weekend Night Certificate, and the reservation system won’t let you change the date to be outside the expiration date.
As you are the king of transfers, Grant, do you know if I after I transfer 1k Amex MR and 9k SPG to my Hawaiian Airlines account, will I then be able to transfer 10k to HILTON HHonors? And it’ll turn into 15k HHonors, right?
Based on the chart from Hawaiian Airlines’ website (http://www.hawaiianairlines.com/hawaiianmiles/pages/use-with-other-partners.aspx), 10,000 Hawaiian Airlines miles = 15,000 Hilton HHonors Points.
You can also convert 1,000 AMEX Membership Rewards Points = 1,500 Hilton HHonors Points or 1,000 Citi Thank You Points = 1,500 Hilton HHonors Points.
I don’t think converting 9,000 SPG points into Hilton HHonors Points is a good deal though.
Thanks for the advice! I’m 30K short for a third night in Maui; for the first two nights, I’m using the two free weekend nights. I have 11K Amex MR and 9K SPG. It’s 8 months away, so would you suggest manufacturing 10K on my HHilton Citi and Amex? Those cards give 3x on regular spend.
There are plenty of options available. You could always open a Bank of America Virgin Atlantic Credit Card and transfer those miles to Hilton (1,000 VA : 1,500 HH, 10,000 VA mile minimum). MSing $10,000 on your Hilton credit cards is probably the bets option though.
Thanks for taking the time to type this up. Question: if a hotel charges more for a room with two queens as opposed to one king, will I be able to use the certificate and get that room? Also, will I get dinged with a fee or something if I have my kids with us in the room?
In most cases, a room with 2 queen beds or a room with 1 king bed will cost the same number of Hilton HHonors points. As long as those rooms are the standard number of points (in increments of 5,000 points, not 72,635 points for example), you should be able to reserve either room. Since you have to call to book, tell the phone rep that you want a room with 2 queen beds and that there will be kids in the room. The agent will not charge you for making the request.
Thank you. Seems hard to find standard Hilton rooms in London with two beds!
Yes, London hotel rooms are typically small do you might only be able to find a queen room at most hotels.
Can you change your certificate reservation after booking?
Yes, as long as the cancellation/refund date has not passed.
Hi Grant,
Do you know whether I’d lose the certificates if I cancel my card?
I’m pretty sure the certificates are linked to your Hilton account, so closing the credit card will not result in losing your certificates.
Grant, I made a reservation with a reward certificate in Nov. and when I checked out they took 30,000 points from my account. It took 6 weeks to get it put back in. Now I have a new certificate and made a reservation. However, I am afraid this will happen again because it says total for stay: 40,000 points for the room. Should it say 0 points or reward certificate in instead of 40,000 points? It does have the correct reward certificate number where it says “reward confirmation ID”. I’m nervous that the mistake will happen again. I can’t find any of my past reward reservations, but seems like it never had “points” on them. Vicki
I would just call the Hilton reservation department and ask them to verify that the reservation was made with the certificate and not with Hilton points.