Hilton Diamond Status

I don't know why I am writing this to be honest, I am totally outing myself right now. There is no doubt in my mind that this gets back to Hilton somehow, some way, but I think it is too weird not to discuss. I have been going on almost 5 years now of having Hilton Diamond status without earning any of it. And, no, I am not playing some clickbait crap with carrying a Hilton Aspire card. The really weird thing is that I just received another email congratulating me on extending Hilton Diamond again, but with really weird date.

When Did This All Start?

Let's go back in time, to an era where hours felt like weeks and months felt like decades. A time called the covid pandemic. It was late March, or early April, of that special time in everyone's life (sarcasm font) when the world came to a screeching halt.

It just so happened that this painful time in our history coincided with the annual renewal of my Hilton Aspire card. Since it looked like we may be in backyard vacation purgatory for a very long time, I decided it wasn't worth paying the Aspire cards annual fee another year. Even though it is a valuable premium card, which has recently changed a bit, it just didn't make sense to carry without traveling. The value really hinges on the resort credit, and I didn't see any chance of us using it during that next year of travel. Side note: Hilton completely pants me like a month later when they said the resort credit could work on dining instead, but I digress.

That meant at the time of closure I was a Hilton Diamond member from carrying the card. I figured my status would shortly transition over to Hilton Gold from my Surpass card (or was it still the stupid Ascend card back then – and why do they all look exactly the flippin same?!?!), but that never came.

In Roll The Status Extensions

I believe I never made my sad decent to Gold because, almost immediately, status extensions started to roll out. Then they rolled out again the following year (2021). By 2022 I figured this would be my last hurrah with Hilton Diamond status. The covid status rollovers would finally be done, and I would be back to the best mid-tier hotel status in the business, Hilton Gold.

To be honest, I didn't even really care, since there isn't a noticeable difference between the two status levels at most properties.

The status hammer did end up dropping, but it crushed upon my wife's head, who had closed her Aspire card towards the end of 2021. Hmm, strange since I closed mine more than a full year earlier than hers.

Which meant that 2022 and 2023 came and went, and I am still a top tier Hilton Diamond flexing elite. Someone bring me my giraffe parking over here already! We are now most of the way through 2024, and you guessed it, I am still a Diamond carrying member of the Hilton Honors gang. Not only that, but they just told me that I am good to go for a while more.

I Extended My Diamond Status Once Again?!

Last week I received an email congratulating me on extending my Hilton Diamond status. Uh, what? I am not sure how, and I am definitely not sure why. What was really interesting was the date listed on the congratulations email. It said I had secured Hilton Diamond status until 3/31/25. That doesn't make much sense to me, since that is when status earned in 2023 would be set to expire. If I had extended my status, then it should be good until 3/31/26. Not ending in 2025.

Hilton Diamond Status: ToP Thoughts

Will this Hilton Diamond status charade finally end in March of 2025? Was I just a glitch in the matrix when it comes to their top tier elites? Why send out an email saying I had extended my status then? And, why do it for only a few more months? These are all questions that I think go unanswered. The real question that will be answered is will I get a 6th year of unearned Hilton Diamond status? Like I said, it doesn't really mean much to me either way. The only real benefit might be racking up a few years towards Hilton Diamond lifetime status. I doubt I ever earn enough points for it to matter though.

Anyone else out there still flexing status they didn't earn with Hilton? Let me know over in the ToP Facebook Group.