Following a previous post on how to secure Hilton Honors Gold status for 2018, I’m glad to see now that the fast track offer is now officially featured on the Visa Infinite webpage.ย Helpful commenters have already shared their experience of successfully enrolling in the offer, but it’s always good to see official confirmation.
I’ve recently done a stock-take of how much I value Hilton elite statusย – in short, I think having a Gold is akin to having a 19-26% cashback card for Hilton properties. A 2-stay / 4-night requirement is a really low requirement for unlocking such a privilege – if you hold a Visa Infinite card issued inย “Asia Pacific (except Japan), Middle East & Africa” (i.e. Singaporean VI cards should qualify), you can proceed to enroll your Hilton Honors numberย hereย (currently valid until 30 Jun 2018).
After enrolling, you’ll have 90 days to clock the stays. From previous experience, reward stays will qualify – though if you want to trigger other Hilton promotions I’d suggest making a mixed points and cash redemption, unless you plan on incurring other incidental spend during your stay (e.g. dinner at hotel restaurant).
Additionally, if you currently hold status that is expiring, you might want to complete your two stays before April 2018 so that you can still enjoy elite benefits while re-qualifying.
Visa Signature as well
[Update: As noted in the comments by CTAN, the registration system now accepts Visa Signature registration.]
One interesting thing is that the offer is also listed on the Visa Signature webpage.ย The actual offer pageย also lists Visa Signature under ‘Eligible Cards’.
However, the very same offer page states to ‘visit Visa Infinite website’ to register for the fast-track offer, so it’s unclear if Visa Signature cards are truly meant to be eligible.
In practice, the Milelion team was not able to successfully unlock the offer using Visa Signature cards – we tried the following cards without any success:
DBS Altitudeย Visa SignatureMaybank Horizonย Visa SignatureUOB Visa SignatureCitibank Rewards Visa Signature
The only one that did work was the UOB PRVI Miles Visa, but as we’d mentioned before that particular card is like a VI in disguise (at least, for older batches of the card).
I’ll be checking with Visa / Hilton about whether Visa Signature is intended to be on the list – if that’s really the case, it would vastly increase the number of people eligible for fast track Gold status. Gold status holders in the region could probably forget about getting nice upgrades in the future (not that it happens much right now).
Given that in the US, they’ve recently launched a card that grants complimentary Diamond status (also Gold, Silver for lower-tier versions), it may very well be the case that Hilton’s decided that Gold status is cheap enough to dish out like Oprah’s cars (lose breakfast rates, increase market share?). So, maybe the promotion is indeed intended for Visa Signature and the registration engine merely needs updating.
I have called Visa Concierge. Initially the CSO was telling me that this was only for Visa Infinite and I directed her to the website and she did not know of this & this extension was not made known to them & was very recent to also include the Visa Signature as well.
They will report to their supervisors & reply me via email. Hopefully will be hearing from them soon.
Guess this is new to almost everyone involved!
I did spot another mention of ‘Visa Signature’ buried further in the T&C of the offer page, so it might well be the desired direction and the current rejection of Visa Signature card numbers is the error that needs to be resolved. Do update if you hear anything!
Visa Signature Concierge confirmed the link can input the Visa Signature. Tried using Citibank PM Signature Visa & it finally brought me to the second page to register for the fast Gold Track
Great news! (At least, for Signature cardholders)
thanks for this confirmation!
Hilton is now a chinese based company. Like their airlines, they have a common problem catching the premium market but in the mass market, you can’t beat them. If Hilton brings down its pants, it is hardly a surprise.
You’re referring to HNA’s acquisition of Hilton shares (relatively) recently? Interesting; I hadn’t thought of it that way. From what I can see they don’t actually own a majority stake (wiki says 25%), but the timing of some of these changes does coincide with the acquisition.
Hi Louis, I noticed that you stated the deadline to enrol is June 2018. Does that mean 1 June 2018 or 30 June 2018?
30 Jun! Two other points I’d highlight:
1) That’s just the deadline for registration, so you can still take 90 days after that (around end Sep?) to complete your stays and qualify.
2) It might very well be extended again. (but who knows, right?)
Thanks for checking; will update the post to make it clearer.
Currently, I am already in Gold trier and will expire in 31st Mar 2019. When I login to my account I see that I need to do 3 stays for 2019 or 2020? Not sure which is which, Anyway, any advise if Is this an good option (to do the fast track) and do 2 stays instead? Thank you.
Your next qualification will be for status in 2019 (which will expire in Mar 2020). It sounds like you’re already on a fast track option of some sort – I think it really depends on what your expected stay pattern will be before that fast track expires. If you’re likely to hit 3 stays before then, it won’t make a difference, so why bother switching? If you only have two stays confirmed it’s certainly worth trying, but two things I’d caution about: 1) Technically, the Visa fast track can only be applied once per account. A friend of mine has… Read more »
After trying to register with both my Visa Infinite and Signature card, I found that this promotion is only available for Visa Infinite card account, not for Signature (maybe not for SG issued signature card).
Yup, that’s the Milelion team’s experience as well. It’s listed on the SG Visa Signature page though, and Visa Concierge has said they’ll need to check on this, so at this point we’re still not sure whether Signature cards are actually supposed to be eligible.
I attempted to enroll the Visa Infinite fast track on Dec 2017 but somehow has forgotten about it (on long holiday) and when I actually did enrolled, it was 2nd January 2018. Gave a call to Hilton Rep and they said I enrolled successfully. As of yesterday, I completed my 2 stays and is a HHonors Gold until March 2020 now
How to check if we have enrolled successfully?
My Hilton honors app still says I need 4 stays to silver. I tried calling reservations hotline, but got someone who could barely understand English. After much difficulty, he confirmed my application was received 2 days ago. I asked him to send an email confirmation of my eligibility for gold fast track, but still have not received anything.
For non-urgent queries I usually just email HHonors@hrcc-hilton.com – should suit your requirements in this case.
Hi,
Do l need to use the same Visa card that l registered to pay for my Hilton room booking? Thanks
Can use any card (even non-Visa), no issue.
Meaning we can use say Women’s card to book even though we are using say DBS altitude card (visa signature) to register for this offer?
Yes. Card usage is not tracked at all; only needed to unlock the fast track offer.
To clock the 2 stay or the 4 night requirement for fast track gold, do I have to book from Hilton direct i.e. Hilton honors website or app etc. Or is it I can book from even OTA?
Not sure how are they tracking this…
This is probably best explained by referring to the ‘Terms and Conditions’ section on the offer page…
Look for the section beginning “Stay is valid only by booking direct. Book direct refers to booking or reserving a room via any โHilton booking channelโ. Booking channels include…”
Thanks!
Missed out that section somehow!
Hi Louis, would like to hear your views of SPG gold in comparison to Hilton gold. As of what I see, Hilton seems to offer from points for per stay but for both, stay redemption points seem a little hard to compare, for me. Do you know if Hilton and SPG will do a status match?
I’ve pretty much only had Hilton experience, for chains, so unfortunately I can’t offer you that much first-hand opinion on the two programmes beyond what Google offers – I trust you can do that as well as I can. ๐ What I can comment on: 1) As far as benefits go, previously I’d have said that Hilton Gold (free breakfast, possibility of upgrade with lounge access) wins SPG Gold (neither of those benefits) hands-down. But now that SPG Gold matches to Marriott Gold (free breakfast, guaranteed lounge access), I’d say that SPG/Marriott Gold might be the preferred option, in that… Read more »