Over the years, I’ve learned to appreciate the Free Night Reward from the Hilton Surpass AMEX. This certificate is one of the best free night benefits in the game—far more generous than what other hotel programs offer. It’s valid any night of the week at almost all Hilton properties (with some exclusions), covers resort fees and taxes, and can even be stacked with other Hilton promotions. Pretty great, right?
How to Earn a Free Night
We earn a Free Night Reward each year after spending $15,000 on the Hilton Surpass AMEX, but the Hilton Aspire Card allows you to earn up to three free nights per year. Here’s how:
- 1st Free Night – Automatically issued on your account anniversary
- 2nd Free Night – Earned after $30,000 in spending in a calendar year
- 3rd Free Night – Earned after $60,000 in spending in a calendar year
Hilton is also offering a Free Night Reward as part of a limited time sign-up bonus on several of its co-brand cards, including the Surpass and the no-annual-fee Hilton Honors card.
The Major Drawback
If there’s one thing that drives me crazy about Hilton Honors, it’s that you still have to call to redeem a Free Night Reward. In an age where we can book flights, hotels, and entire vacations with a few taps online, why on earth does Hilton still insist on making us pick up the phone, like it’s 1999?
Want to check if your Free Night Reward has been issued or see its expiration date? Hilton finally updated its systems so you can view your certificates online in your Hilton account. Before that, you had to keep track of the email with the expiration date—or, you guessed it, call again.
Calling Hilton to Book
We recently went to use a Free Night Reward and were reminded of this minor annoyance. We planned some time, called Hilton at 1-800-446-6677, sat through a phone menu, waited for an agent, and finally got someone to book it.
Before calling, I made sure there was availability at our preferred hotel—meaning I checked that a Standard Room Award was available. Once we were connected to a rep, it took a while to explain why we were calling. He finally understood that we wanted to use a Free Night Reward, which started the whole process over from the beginning:
- Looking up the hotel
- Checking availability (which I had already done)
- Asking what room type we wanted (we only had two options: one bed or two)
- Waiting for him to “confirm with the hotel”
I don’t understand this step—it should take seconds to see if a room is available. Why does it require a separate call to the hotel? Maybe that’s just me.
After finally booking the room, we gave up on adding an additional night to the reservation through this agent and decided to book it online. At the end of the call, we were asked if we wanted to speak with Hilton Vacations (the timeshare division) for a bonus of 500 points. The thought of sitting through a timeshare pitch for what amounts to $2.50 in points wasn’t worth the time.
In total, the call took 16 minutes. To book the other night online? 3 minutes.
Why Deal With This?
To be clear, I love this Free Night Reward, and it’s absolutely worth the $15K spend. But Hilton, it’s time to get with the times. Let us book our Free Night Rewards online, just like we do with standard award stays. It’s a simple fix that would make this already-great perk even better.
Have you had to call in to redeem a Hilton Free Night Reward? Let me know how your experience went!
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