🏨 How to avoid the latest devaluation

Estimated read time: 4 minutes and 38 seconds

Good morning from my cozy suite in the sky, where the legroom is endless and the Wi-Fi is… fine.

There’s some big news in the points world today, so let’s dive right in:

• 🏨 Hilton devalues its program… again

• 😭 Transfers to Hawaiian are officially ending

• ✈️ Alaska adds a new (awesome) airline partner

🏨 Hilton devalues its program… again

Welp… Hilton’s done it again.

Without any formal announcement, Hilton has increased award prices for many of its top-tier properties.

Standard rooms now cost up to 200,000 points per night (up from 150,000), though thankfully, not every property was butchered this badly.

Of course, since Hilton uses dynamic pricing, rates can always be higher, but this change raises the floor at many properties.

But here’s the silver lining…

Hilton Free Night Awards (FNAs) continue to have no cap and can be used at just about any property with standard room availability.

Take this property in Tulum, Mexico, for example, which costs at least 130,000 points per night.

On the search page, you’ll see the term “standard room reward,” meaning it’s bookable with your Free Night Certificate by simply calling Hilton.

Earning Hilton FNAs is super easy — I personally earn two of them every year just by holding two of these co-branded cards (yes, you can have multiples of the same card 😉).

Right now, I have two FNAs in my account, which I plan to use for the most luxurious two-night stay I can imagine.

The [[ hilton-honors-american-express-aspire-card.name ]] (along with the [[ hilton-honors-american-express-surpass-card.name ]]) also allows you to earn Free Night Awards by meeting spending thresholds in a calendar year.

But there’s another important takeaway from this piece of news…

This isn’t the first time Hilton’s increased award prices, and it won’t be the last. It’s yet another reminder that points don’t age well, so you should use them sooner rather than later.

And there’s another takeaway as well…

While many properties increased in price, not all of them were as crazy as the example I showed you.

Some well-known luxury hotels like the Conrad Tokyo only increased by 5,000 points per night, which still makes it a great use of points or FNAs.

The other silver lining is that the overwhelming majority of Hilton hotels in the world didn’t change at all. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Still, if you're sitting on a stash of Hilton points, now’s a good time to burn 'em and earn some Free Night Awards while you’re at it.

😭 Transfers to Hawaiian are officially ending

I’ve got good news and bad news for you. Which one do you want first?

Just kidding, you know how this works. It’s the bad news. 🤡

The most valuable deal in points and miles right now officially has an end date.

As of June 30, 2025, you’ll no longer be able to transfer Membership Rewards points to Hawaiian Airlines — and by extension, not to Alaska Airlines.

We knew this day would come eventually, but it’s sad to see it happen so soon.

Why? Because Alaska miles are the most valuable U.S. points currency for domestic and international travel.

For example, you can book flights on American Airlines for as few as 4,500 Alaska miles in economy or 9,000 in business… with excellent availability:

I booked many of these flights already this year, and the value is simply unrivaled by other programs.

These miles are so valuable that I transferred my entire Membership Rewards points balance to Alaska last year… and I’m going to do the same thing again now.

As a reminder, this works by transferring MR points to Hawaiian, then using this online tool to instantly transfer them to Alaska.

I already told you why I love Alaska’s program so much, and just a few days ago, I told you how I used Alaska miles to book a $7,000 trip around the South Pacific.

But another excellent sweet spot is flying from the U.S. to Europe in business class for as few as 45,000 miles, with pretty solid availability most of the year:

So here’s the bottom line:

If you have Membership Rewards points lying around, I would highly consider moving some or all of them to Alaska before it’s too late.

Moving forward, you’ll still be able to transfer directly to Alaska from Bilt Rewards, which is a solid alternative.

✈️ Alaska adds a new (awesome) airline partner

Now, for some good news…

Alaska has announced that Philippine Airlines (PAL) will join its list of airline partners, which is amazing news.

PAL currently operates 32 weekly flights between the U.S. and the Philippines, which means 32 new ways to get to Asia with points and miles (yay).

These flights aren’t bookable just yet, but Alaska says redemptions are coming soon… and we can still figure out how much they will cost. 😏

For example, the PAL flight from San Francisco (SFO) to Manila (MNL) clocks in just under 7,000 miles.

According to Alaska’s award chart, this flight should cost just 37,500 miles in economy:

But it’s worth noting that Alaska’s award chart isn’t always accurate.

You may not know that Singapore Airlines (a Star Alliance airline) is one of Alaska’s many partners, with flights that price differently than other partners.

For example, according to the award chart, a flight from Tokyo (NRT) to Bali (DPS) via Singapore (SIN) should cost 30,000 miles.

In reality, it costs just 22,500 Alaska miles. And this same discrepancy holds up for almost every Singapore flight booked through Alaska.

Singapore itself charges double that cost, and even Aeroplan charges more than Alaska for the same route.

I know, I buried the lede — whatever a “lede” is.

But here’s the point: Because PAL is a unique partner that doesn’t belong to the Oneworld alliance, we could see unique award pricing.

This is just another one of the many reasons you might consider transferring points to Alaska before it’s too late.

That’s all for today, folks!

I hope you enjoyed these updates… I don’t know about you, but I’m glad to have ways to work around devaluations and a decent heads-up on the Hawaiian transfers ending.

I’m going back to enjoying my business-class suite and pretending that there’s no chance in hell I’ll ever sleep on a plane, but stay tuned for more travel tips tomorrow.

Cheers,

52°22'35.4"N 52°15'17.4"W