Staying at Hilton Family Hotels pays back

Nowadays, every business chain (i.e. Hilton Hotels, Choice Hotels, Radisson Hotels, Staples, FedEx, Dick?s, Kroger) has its own rewards program. These programs are part of our everyday life. Anywhere you go you are being asked either you are a member of their reward programs. Every one of them even started giving out credit cards (if eligible) to collect points by using the card for food, gas, hotel stays, and much more and we do. Most of us are members of one of the chain rewards.

Since this is a travel blog, I would like to share with you guys about reward program I use for my hotel stay. I travel very often and usually stay at Hilton Family hotels. Why, you may ask? Because the staff is so nice and greedy wherever I stay. However I prefer to stay and Hampton Inns. They all have the same standards and treat their loyal customers like kings, knowing what your requests are and which type of room I would like to stay at etc. All of this because of their Loyalty Program.

Becoming a HHonors member gives me express check-ins anywhere I stay (Hilton family hotels). When I signed up for it I specified my favorite room preferences, which floor I would like to stay at and so on. Every time I make a reservation and the room time I would like is not available, there is no need to worry that I won?t get it. I guess, the Front Desk people go through the reservations pretty often and try to accommodate the guest?s preferences. I have traveled and stayed at Hilton Family Hotels for a few years know, and never had a bad experience. Well, maybe once, when they could not put me into a NON-Smoking room. But that happened only once, and I believe if it did, only because the truly could not find me a good room for me.

When I joined their rewards program I started receiving points for every dollar I spend for my stay. In addition I was getting bonus points and airline miles for showing my National rental car at check in. Yes, with HHonors, you can triple dip. You can get points for your stay, airline miles and rental car. How nice is that. Every business traveler who stays in the hotels every other night just loves that.

Anyway, now I?ll briefly tell you about the program itself. HHonors has five different preferred member statuses. When you first sign up?you become a blue member. After a few stays you become silver, gold and diamond. Below is a table of status changes.

# of Nights # of Stays Blue 0 0 Silver 10 4 Gold 36 16 Diamont 60 28 # of Nights and Stays are per consecutive 12 moth period.

In addition, they let you to collect points towards your hotel stays and airline miles at the same time. If you login to your HHonors account you will get a chance to select your preferred airline partner and enter your airline rewards number. They have a few choices to collect points. First, receiving HHonors points + 10 HHonors points for each US dollar you spend. Second, receiving HHonors points + 500 Airline miles for each US dollar you spend.

Concluding my bragging about HHonors rewards program, I?ll tell you how it paid of to me. When I collected 400.000 points on my account I received a newsletter from Hilton Rewards saying that I finally have enough points to go to Hawaii and stay at one of their properties for free, using HHonors points. Right on! That?s what I have been waiting for. Me and my girlfriend took a trip to Hawaii and only paid our Airfare, rental car and food expenses. That?s it.

By the way, I already started planning my next trip to Caribbean.

At my travel blog you will be able to find the lates travel reviews based on my experiences. I will post articles and tips for family an business travelers. For more info please visit: http://www.itravelgeek.com/travel-blog/