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The Citi Hilton Honors Reserve Card comes with Two Free Weekend Nights worldwide at top tier Hiltons after spending $2,500 on the card in the first four months.
As a loyalty bonus, the Citi Hilton Honor Reserve Card offers an additional free weekend night certificate after spending $10,000 within a cardmember year.
Since any new cardholder will spend $2,500 on the card to get the first two free night certificates, that means that spending $7,500 more on the card during the first 12 months will entitle you to a third free night certificate, in addition to the Hilton points you’d normally earn on that extra $7,500 in spending.
This extra free night certificate is an incredible benefit for many people who highly value a free night at a top-tier hotel.
In fact, the benefit compares favorably to spending the same $7,500 on most other cards.
- How much is a third free night certificate worth?
- How does spending $7,500 extra on the Hilton Reserve card compare to spending $7,500 on another card?
- Can you use all three weekend certificates for one stay?
How Do We Compare Spending on Different Credit Cards?
I use the idea of “rebate percentage” to compare spending on different credit cards.
Rebate percentage is simply the value of the miles, points, free night certificates, etc that we earn from spending on a card divided by how much spending we do on that card.
For instance, I value one SPG Starpoint at 2.5 cents. I get one Starpoint per dollar on my SPG card, so I get 2.5 cents per dollar rebated to me in the form of Starpoints when I use the card. That’s a rebate percentage of 2.5%.
In general, meeting minimum spending requirements to unlock sign up bonuses has the biggest rebate percentage, followed by category bonuses, followed by non-bonused spending.
Rebate Percentage Example for Citi Hilton Reserve
When spending on the Citi Hilton Honors Reserve Card, we earn Hilton points and free night certificates.
We need to value both in dollars in order to calculate a rebate percentage for the spending. What we’d like to determine here is whether or not spending an extra $7,500 on the Citi Hilton Honors Reserve Card is a good idea. The quick answer is: it depends!
That extra $7,500 in spending gets you one Hilton free night certificate. Hilton free night certificates can be used at all but a a few Hilton properties worldwide for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night check ins. Some of the hotels at which you can use a free night certificate go for $1,000 or more per night like the Conrad Koh Samui.
That $7,500 in spending also gets you at least 22,500 Hilton points since the card earns:
- Earn 10 Honors Bonus Points per $1 spent on hotel stays within the Hilton Honors portfolio
- Earn 5 Honors Bonus Points per $1 spent on airline and car rental purchases
- Earn 3 Honors Bonus Points per $1 spent on all other eligible purchases
Hilton points can be redeemed for free nights.
The Hilton Honors program underwent some changes recently as to how it prices it’s award rooms now, but not so much that it change our strategy to maximize the Hilton program. While the value in a free night certificate is staying at top tier properties, the value with points is stretching them at low tier properties. I stayed at an awesome Category 2 in Kuala Lumpur.
If you value all hotel stays at their retail value, you can get one cent of value per Hilton point at some properties. Most people will get half that value or less.
I’ve made a table of reasonable valuations for Hilton points and free night certificates below. Each column represents a person. I’m probably like Person 3, which means that my rebate percentage on an extra $7,500 of spending on the Hilton Reserve is 5.2%. Person 6, who values top-tier hotels at their retail value, gets a massive 16.3% rebate on his $7,500 in spending.
Free Night Cert Valuation | $100 | $200 | $300 | $400 | $500 | $1,000 |
Hilton Point Valuation (cents) | 0.3 | 0.35 | 0.4 | 0.45 | 0.5 | 1.0 |
Rebate Percentage | 2.23% | 3.72% | 5.2% | 6.69% | 8.17% | 16.33% |
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How does spending on the Hilton Reserve stack up against other reward cards?
Now let’s compare that rebate percentage to the rebate percentage you would get by spending the same $7,500 on another card.
Versus Non-Bonused Spending
The Starwood Preferred Guest American Express gives you 1 point per dollar on all purchases, and I value one Starpoint at 2.5 cents. That means a rebate percentage of 2.5%.
My rebate percentage would be 5.2% on the last $7,500 of spending to get my annual free night certificate from the Citi Hilton Honors Reserve Card, so I’m better off putting non-bonused spending on the Hilton Reserve.
Versus Category Bonuses
The Citi ThankYou® Premier Card earns 3x ThankYou Points on travel including gas, 2x ThankYou Points on dining out and entertainment, and 1x on other purchases.
I value ThankYou Points at 1.9 cents each, so travel/gas has a rebate percentage of 5.7%, and restaurants/entertainment have a 3.8% rebate percentage.
My rebate percentage would be 5.2% on the last $7,500 of spending to get my annual free night certificate from the Hilton Reserve, so I am better off putting travel and gas purchases on the Citi ThankYou® Premier Card but restaurant purchases on the Hilton Reserve.
Free Night Certificates VS. Hilton Points
This whole post up to this point has been discussing Hilton’s Free Weekend Night Certificates. The other angle to the Hilton Honors program–mentioned briefly above–are the points you can earn pretty easily from sign up bonuses on cards like the Amex Honors the Hilton Honors Card from American Express (80,000 Hilton Points after spending $2,000 in the first three months). Another great card for accruing a lot of Hilton points to spend on a multitude of free nights is the Hilton Honors Surpass Card from American Express (100,000 bonus Hilton points after making $3,000 in purchases in the first three months).
Open both at the same time and spend $5,000 collectively on both cards in the first three months, and you’d be flush with at least 195,000 HHonors points, enough for…
- 48 free nights at prior Category 1 Hiltons (top picks listed in post)
- 23 free nights at prior Category 2 Hiltons (top picks listed in post)
- 11 free nights at prior Category 3 Hiltons (top picks listed in post)
…if you include the 5th-night-free bonus available to all Hilton elites on award bookings, which is you if you hold either card.
Another perk of the Hilton Honors Surpass Amex’s sign up bonus is a Free Weekend Night Certificate after your first cardmember anniversary. If you worked towards earning that Free Weekend Night on your Reserve card and you kept your Hilton Honors Surpass Amex ($75 annual fee) open past the first year, that’s another free weekend at a luxury top tier Hilton.
Note that the Amex Hilton cards’ sign up bonuses are elevated temporarily, until May 31. If you want a truck load of Hilton points, sign up now.
Credit card links have been removed from posts and added to the menu bar at the top of every page of MileValue under the heading Top Travel Credit Cards.
Bottom Line
The Citi Hilton Honors Reserve Card has a great sign up bonus of two free weekend nights at top-tier hotels worldwide. It also comes with free Gold Status, which more than cancels out the $95 annual fee for me.
You need to spend $2,500 to get the sign up bonus of two free weekend night certificates.
If you spend another $7,500, you will get a third certificate on your cardmember anniversary.
Spending that extra $7,500 will also get you at least 22,500 Hilton points.
The total value of the Hilton points and free night certificate vary by person, but at reasonable valuations, most people will see a rebate of 5%+ on that $7,500 in spending, which is a better rebate than you’d get putting that spending on most cards.
For more info on the free nights, and the $1,000-a-night hotels see:
- When Will You Get Your Hilton Reserve Card’s Two Free Night Certificates?
- Where Should I Redeem My Free Hilton Nights?
- Where I Redeemed My Hilton Free Weekend Nights Certificates
- Top Five Hiltons Within the US for Two Free Nights on Hilton Reserve
Bonus
You can use your three free weekend night certificates for one stay. Each is good for a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday night, so the stay would be from Friday until Monday.
Each certificate is good for one year from issuance, so you’d want to take as much of the four months as possible to meet the minimum spending requirement to get those certificates as late as possible. You should get the third certificate on your cardmember anniversary, giving you about four months in which all three are valid–read more about this in the Flyertalk thread about the Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve Card (check the Wiki at the top).
Just getting started in the world of points and miles? The Chase Sapphire Preferred is the best card for you to start with.
With a bonus of 60,000 points after $4,000 spend in the first 3 months, 5x points on travel booked through the Chase Travel℠ and 3x points on restaurants, streaming services, and online groceries (excluding Target, Walmart, and wholesale clubs), this card truly cannot be beat for getting started!
Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers.
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When do those certs expire?
12 months from the date that they’re emailed to you, and your stay has to be completed on or before the expiration date.
So you couldn’t stack the free night on your anniversary with the 2 free night certs from the bonus, correct?
Yes you can. Read the last paragraph of the post.
Is it still possible to exchange the certs to points?
“Another perk of the Hilton Honors Surpass Amex is a Free Weekend Night Certificate every year after your cardmember anniversary.”
I don’t think that is right. I think it is only 1 time after your first cardmember year and that’s it. Kinda like a part of the sign up bonus.
Yes you’re correct, updated.
What about second year — worth keeping?