Template: Hilton Breakfast

Hilton Gold status entitles you to free continental breakfast (for two) at every brand in the Hilton program or a free snack at any brand that already provides free breakfast to everyone. The only exception is the Hilton Grand Vacation Clubs.

For example, you can take advantage of this benefit at every Hilton, Doubletree, Hilton Garden Inn, Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, Curio collection, Tapestry Collection, and Tru hotel.

• While you are only entitled to continental breakfast, many hotels will give you a full hot breakfast or breakfast buffet instead, and many other hotels will allow you to upgrade to a full breakfast for a small extra charge. For example, a hotel may provide access to a hot menu item for an $8 additional charge per person and you'll still get free juice and coffee.
• If you don't want breakfast, you can choose 1,000 bonus points instead. At most hotels brands where everyone gets free breakfast, such as Embassy Suites, Homewood Suites, and Hampton, Gold members get their choice of free snacks or small quantities of Hilton points instead.
• Gold status also comes with some other nice benefits, such as a better chance of upgrades to a slightly nicer room and a 80% bonus on points earned for stays. Along with Silver members, Gold members get their 5^th night free on award reservations, 2 bottles of free water, and elite tier rollover nights. Hilton Status Benefits.
• The Hilton Aspire card comes with Diamond status, instead of Gold. Diamond status gives you guaranteed access to any executive lounge at Conrad, Curio, Hilton, DoubleTree, and Tapestry Collection hotels, an enhanced snack / bonus points benefit, a 100% points bonus (instead of 80%), a potentially better upgrade, and a 48-hour room guarantee.

Temporary(?) Hilton Breakfast Changes

Until the end of 2021, Hilton Gold and Platinum members will receive a food & beverage credit instead of the "free breakfast" benefit at hotels within the United States. Benefits at international locations remain the same. For each room, you'll receive up to two per-person credits each day. Credits amounts are $25 each at Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, and LXR, $12-15 each at most other brands, and $10 each at Hilton Garden Inn.

Credits can be used at any restaurant, bar, or market at the hotel or for room service, will be applied automatically to your hotel bill, and need to be used each day (they won't roll over to the next day on your stay).

Unfortunately, these credits are too low to pay for a full breakfast at the many hotels that historically provided a hot breakfast or buffet to Gold and Diamond elites (or to feed more than 2 people per room at the hotels which choose to comp entire families). In many cases, the credits won't even be enough to purchase the "continental" breakfast that is the official elite benefit, especially at resort hotels, hotels in expensive locations, and hotels that have "continental buffets".

On the positive side, a flexible food and beverage credit provides can be used for a drink and/or snack (or a lunch or dinner discount) if you don't want breakfast or if your breakfast would be reimbursed as a travel expense.

Hilton is touting this as a response to guests who want more flexibility. Hopefully in the future, they will give guests the choice of free breakfast or a flexible credit, so that guests that want the breakfast won't be required to pay the potential difference in cost.

If you are traveling alone, it makes sense to always book your room for two people. There is a good chance you'll wind up receiving two credits per day. Template:Hilton Breakfast/Box

Which credit card to get

There are three different credit cards that provide automatic Hilton gold or diamond status.

Option 1: The simplest path to Gold status is to get the Hilton Surpass or Business Card

• Both cards cost $95 per year and come with a valuable signup bonus.
• Along with Gold status, you get 10 free Priority Pass airport lounge visits per year. The 10 visit passes can be useful if you don't already have a Priority Pass membership from another card (such as the Sapphire Reserve), or you already have a Priority Pass membership, but need a way to occasionally bring in some additional guests. Get Free Airport Lounge Access from a Credit Card.
• If you spend $15,000 in a calendar year, you'll get a certificate that you can use for a free weekend night at any hotel in the Hilton program You can use the certificate for a free night at very expensive hotels such as Grand Wailea in Hawaii, the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego, the Conrad in Tokyo, or the Waldorf Astoria in Park City, or at one of thousands of other Hilton family hotels. If you decide to get this card for the free breakfast benefit, spend enough money on your credit cards each year, and are willing to deal with the extra complexity, it is worthwhile to spend enough to earn the certificate. Otherwise, you don't want to use the card for any of your spending. Hilton Free Weekend Night Certificates.
• The two cards are nearly identical, but the business version of the card provides typically less valuable bonus categories and the opportunity to earn a second free night certificate (with a whopping $60,000 in annual spending).
• If you are collecting signup bonuses, you'll want to postpone one of these card until later. It will take up one of your five Amex credit card slots, slowing down your ability to collect other Amex signup bonuses. In addition, since you are likely to be need to focus most of your spending on meeting signup bonus requirements, it will be hard to spend enough on the card to earn the companion certificate. Get the Platinum card instead. You can get a different Platinum card each year, offsetting the high annual fee with a valuable signup bonus. When you run out of Platinum card versions, you can reconsider getting a Hilton card instead. Dealing with the Amex 5 Credit Card Limit.

Option 2: A more complicated, but potentially more valuable, option is to get the premium Hilton Aspire Card

It costs $450 per year—$355 more than the Hilton Surpass Card. For that extra $355, you get several valuable extra benefits.

• An annual $250 credit for Hilton Resorts. You can only use this credit when you stay at a "resort" property, but you can use it to pay for your room and not just for incidental charges.
• Hilton Diamond status, rather than Gold status. Diamond status gives you access to any Executive lounge, a better chance of getting a good room upgrade, and a 50% bonus on points from stays (rather than a 25% bonus). Hilton Status Benefits.
• A free night certificate every year, without a spending requirement. This saves about $150 in potential lost rewards, when compared to needing to spend $15,000 per year with the regular or business cards. Even better, you get your first free night certificate when you initially get the card, rather than on your first anniversary. Hilton Free Weekend Night Certificates.
• A full Priority Pass membership. Instead of just getting 10 visits, you'll get unlimited access to Priority Pass lounges, with the ability to bring in two guests per visit. However, unlike the Priority Pass memberships that come from other credit cards, the memberships that come from Amex credit cards no longer provide access to restaurants and other alternative locations that participate in the Priority Pass program. You'll only get access to the program's more traditional lounges. And there is a significant chance that you will already have a membership from another card, removing the value from this benefit. Get Free Airport Lounge Access from a Credit Card.
• A $250 annual airline incidentals credit. It only pays for extra fees, like baggage fees and inflight food and beverage purchases, rather than for airplane tickets. And you can only use it on a single airline that you choose at the beginning of the year.

Most people find it hard to naturally take full advantage of these Airline Incidental credits. If you choose the airline you fly the most, chances are that you already have ways to avoid many of the applicable charges (via the airline's credit card or elite status). If you choose another airline, you are unlikely to naturally incur $250 in charges. However, there are some tricks to make it easier to take advantage of. Get Full Value from Your Airline Incidental Credits.

If you think you can get good value from the Airline Incidental credit and the Hilton Resort credit, it is worth spending the extra money for the Aspire version. But for most people, we recommend keeping things simpler and sticking with the Surpass Card. And if you are collecting signup bonuses, take advantage of the Amex Platinum card’s benefits for the first three to four years.

Option 3: Amex Platinum Card

If you decide to collect credit card signup bonuses (which we highly recommend), you are likely to be get Hilton Gold status via the Amex Platinum Card.

Among the many valuable benefits of the Amex Platinum Card is Gold status with Hilton. Unfortunately, the annual fee on the Platinum Card is $695 ($595 for the Business version). Even with all its benefits, we wouldn't normally recommend paying this much per year to hold onto this card.

However, there are several different versions of the Platinum Card. While American Express limits you to one signup bonus per card per lifetime, each version of the Platinum Card has been counted separately. There is a chance this changed as of July 1st, but it isn't clear yet. In any event, you can always get the personal card one year and the business card one year.

The annual fee is worth it for the initial year because you get a very lucrative signup bonus along with the card's regular benefits. Even the lowest signup offer of 60,000 points is valued at $900 and higher offers are often available.

If you sign up for a different card each year, you can maintain continuous access to Hilton Gold status and the other Platinum Card benefits (such as Centurion Lounge access) for a few years, while receiving a signup bonus each year to offset the hefty annual fees. There are currently four versions of the card which are easily accessible. If they don't introduce more variants, that's up to four years of subsidized access to the benefits. Once you've exhausted your options, you can decide whether it is worthwhile for you to continue to hold onto the Platinum Card, whether you want to switch to one of the other options, or whether you aren't getting enough value from the Hilton Gold benefits.