Extend Hilton Free Night Certificates
One of the sought after tools in the miles and points space are free night certificates. These can be from credit card anniversary nights (for paying the annual fee), a perk of status or from yearly spending offers on their co-branded credit cards. The best free night certs on the market are probably from Hilton since they work at most any property and are uncapped in terms of category restrictions. No lame category or points caps like Marriott, Hyatt or IHG here. The problem is people had some of these stack up over the past few years with covid extensions etc. While Marriott is good about extending their certs, and Hyatt offers points for some, many have wondered if you can extend Hilton free night certificates. The answer to that is yes, but not in a way that you probably want.
Our Experience Extending A Hilton Free Night Certificate
ToP team member Shira recently had a need to extend her free night certificate for an upcoming booking. Her cert expired on the 25th of the month and she needed a booking on the 28th of the same month. It was just 3 days, so you would think they would make an exception, wouldn't you?
She was met with resistance with the first few agents, or maybe they just weren't sure how to do an extension. One even said she would need to wait until the free night certificate expired and then call back. What good would that do for a booking just a few days after expiration? There would likely be no award space that close to the booking. She kept telling them she knows they have done it for some others and it should be possible to do.
After getting transferred around a few times she finally got someone on the horn with some authority, or knowledge at least. He told Shira he would be willing to extend her Hilton free night certificate 15 days. That was enough for her to get her booking in, but it isn't as good as what Marriott and Hyatt will do (at least some of the time).
Expiring Hilton Free Night Certificate: ToP Thoughts
Lessons learned here, it is possible to extend Hilton free night certificates but it may not be in any really meaningful way. Because of that it is best to prioritize using Hilton certs over some of the others you may have. Also remember to not let great be the enemy of good. I know we all want that 100K+ points a night hotel room redemption, but 80K is still pretty dang good. Even at a less than perfect redemption rate it will still likely offer you $400+ in value. That is a heck of a lot better than that airport hotel you will book at the last minute just to use it if you keep passing over good looking for great.
It is nice to know that if there is a great redemption only a few weeks past the deadline then you may be in luck on the extension. It may take some effort, and a few calls, but you should be able to make it work.
