Katara Hills Doha, LXR Hotels & Resorts (Source: Hilton)

With Hilton boasting a vast array of properties worldwide, there are a few premium brands that stand out, each offering luxury experiences in sought-after destinations: Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, and LXR. These brands, plus the recent addition of SLH (Small Luxury Hotels of the World), make up Hilton’s most exclusive offerings. In exploring these high-end options, I looked into all 98 hotels across the Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, and LXR collections to uncover the least and most expensive stays and identify which hotels offer the best value when redeeming Hilton Honors points.

Update: I also added around 185 selected high-end Small Luxury Hotels of the World properties that you can book via the Hilton website, as well as all Hilton All-Inclusive properties.

Premises of this analysis

For this comparison, I used Hilton’s “My date is flexible” feature, which provided an average nightly rate and points requirement. I then factored in additional taxes or fees where applicable to provide accurate point-value calculations. Note that my research is based on a one-night stay; longer stays can yield lower nightly cash rates. Also, Hilton’s “stay 5 nights, get 1 night free” award feature can make your points more valuable.

And, of course, keep in mind that points redemptions can be a phenomenal deal when it comes to public holidays, big sport events or other reasons why the cash rates in a town could suddenly spike up! This is something I cannot reflect in this analysis, so always double-check the values for your exact dates!

This analysis reflects my findings as accurately as possible, though there may be small discrepancies. If you spot any errors or have feedback, please reach out—I’d love to hear your insights.

1. The most expensive properties

Given the brands we are looking into here, the most expensive properties are widely spread all across the world. Unsurprisingly, we can find properties in the Maldives, as well as other tropical islands:

Hilton’s **most expensive** properties by cash (brands: Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, LXR, selected high-end SLH, selected Hilton properties, selected Canopy properties)

Waldorf Astoria Ithaafushi (Source: Hilton)

If we look at the cost per night in terms of Hilton Honors points, we see only a slight shift in the ranked properties:

Hilton’s **most expensive** properties by points (brands: Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, LXR, selected high-end SLH, selected Hilton properties, selected Canopy properties)

2. The Cheapest Properties

When we sort the data by cheapest cash rates, we can see that the Conrad brand is dominating this table, as well as that the focus strongly shifts towards China, India, and Thailand:

Hilton’s **least expensive** properties by cash (brands: Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, LXR, selected high-end SLH, selected Hilton properties, selected Canopy properties)

In line with the cheapest properties by cash, the cheapest hotels by points is fairly similar, with the same focus on China, India, and Thailand:

Hilton’s **least expensive** properties by points (brands: Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, LXR, selected high-end SLH, selected Hilton properties, selected Canopy properties)

3. Where your points get you the most value

Now, we are coming to the most interesting part of this analysis! You have a stash of Hilton Honors points or are considering purchasing some during one of Hilton’s regular 100% bonus point promotions, where you can buy points for 0.5 US Cents each.

To make this analysis more precise, I added the following premise to the results:

If you are using a cash rate, I assumed you would get the base 10 Hilton Honors points per $ spent back. For a stay of 1 night for $200 you would receive 2,000 Hilton Honors points. I ignored any additional points you’d be getting from your Hilton status.

I valued these additional points at 1 cent/point each, which is quite ambitious but has been my personal points redemption average over the last bunch of bookings.

To summarize, a $200 a night stay effective “costs” you $200 - 2,000 points * $0.01 = $180.

So let me get to the table and show you what on average are the worst and best redemptions of your Hilton Honors points (please always check for your specific dates as both cash and award rates can vary).

3.1 The worst value of your Hilton Honors points:

Generally, it seems that the cheaper a property is the worse your points redemption. We see the rather inexpensive Conrad properties in China and the Middle East fairly high on the list. None of the properties go above $400 per night. Surprisingly, there are also quite a few properties in the United States on this list - with Conrad properties’ cash rates often around $250 this is a pretty decent deal. Just don’t use points!

If you set the cost of a point at 0.5 cents/point, you can see that none of these properties are on average an attractive deal for award nights. In fact, for each of them you’d be spending extra money on buying points and redeeming them instead of just booking the cash rate.

Hilton’s properties by **worst** points value (brands: Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, LXR, selected high-end SLH, selected Hilton properties, selected Canopy properties)

Stunning lobby at the Conrad Hangzhou (Source: Hilton)

3.2 The best value of your Hilton Honors points:

Now we are getting to the real deal! As somewhat expected, the best value for your points are with properties that generally charge very high cash rates. This is due to Hilton’s limitations of how much they charge for standard award nights. No property charges above 150,000 Hilton Honors points which at a price of 0.5 US Cents/point result in a $750/night cost to you.

Especially the aspirational tropical island properties are on this list. Mind you that finding availabilities for some of these properties is extremely difficult. An analysis I saw on another site put the average award availability at under 10% of the dates within an entire year. You might have to book these stays very far out to get such a deal.

Hilton’s properties by **best** points value (brands: Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, LXR, selected high-end SLH, selected Hilton properties, selected Canopy properties)

Waldorf Astoria Cost Rica Punta Cacique (Source: Hilton)

4. Where can I get Hilton Honors points?

Besides staying at Hilton-owned properties, there are many other ways to get Hilton Honors points. If you are located in the United States, you will likely have access to some fantastic credit cards with large sign-up bonuses that you can transfer to Hilton.

If you, like me, do not live in the United States and don’t have easy access to such credit cards, your best bet is to buy points.

Hilton does have regular promotions where they sell their points with a 100% bonus, effectively selling the points at 0.5 US cents/point. For some of the above properties this is a no-brainer and you can simply buy the points right before you want to book your stay.

Hilton Honors regular points promotion (Source: Hilton)

If you want to check if Hilton has a sales promotion at the moment, you can check it out through the link below (this link will bring you to Hilton’s points purchase site. Please note that this is an affiliate link which will earn this website a commission. This is at no extra cost to you, so we super appreciate your support!):

To the Hilton Points Purchase website

From the legendary Waldorf Astoria Ithaafushi to the boutique hotels of the LXR brand, there are some fantastic redemptions possible. In fact, just in the last few months I have redeemed points for the Conrad Osaka, the Umana Bali LXR, and the Hilton Yala Resort and have through that managed to stay at these luxurious properties while only paying a fraction of the cost.

Even better, the recent addition of hundreds of SLH properties promises to give you great deals on your points. On the list of the 25 properties with the best value for your points you can find the SLH property absolutely dominating.

5. A deeper analysis

Given that I had all the data already in an Excel sheet, I thought it would be interesting to see if we can find a trend in it. Below you can find a scatterplot of all 312 properties I looked into.

Scatterplot chart of all analyzed properties

First takeaway is that there are plenty of properties that lie below the 0.5 cents per point mark that I would classify as the border between getting a discount and making a loss. What is interesting is the clear trend of higher-priced luxury properties netting you the most value per point.

If you are looking to maximize your points and are trying to exceed a 1.0 cent per point redemption, you should be looking at properties that cost on average $1,000 per night or above. Interestingly, most of the Conrad properties don’t seem to offer a good deal on average.

There are also outliers, that are surprising. The Akyra Manor Chiang Mai, an SLH Hotel certainly is the biggest outlier, with a valuation of around 1.4 cents per point while only costing around $300 per night.

Lastly, let me emphasize again that all these values are average values. I have had fantastic redemptions at Hilton and Conrad properties exceeding the 1.0 cents per point mark due to my bookings being during public holidays or big exhibitions in that area. Always compare the points and cash prices for your exact dates.

Conclusion

Whenever you are planning on staying at a property, it is always worth it to briefly compare the cash rate to the point rate. But most of the time, the rule of thumb should be that if the property costs less than $400 per night, you will likely be served better with paying by cash and saving the points for another stay.

If this article was helpful to you, please feel free to share it! Also consider using our affiliate link below if you are planning on buying Hilton points - this comes at no extra cost to you but helps support such analyses. Or buy me a coffee (coffee image on the bottom right) if you like :)