Big Hilton news: two new tiers, upgrade reward and easier qualification

Compared with other hotel chains, Hilton’s loyalty program has always been remarkably stable. Ever since I started following frequent traveller programs, Hilton Honors has kept the same four tiers: Blue, Silver, Gold, and Diamond. Although a “Lifetime Diamond” tier was later introduced, it’s technically not a separate level. By contrast, Accor and IHG have both added new tiers over the years, and Marriott’s structure has changed even more.

Now, it seems Hilton is finally ready to shake things up. It’s not official yet but I dug out some information from the source code of their member page.

Two new elite tiers are coming soon:

• Diamond Reserve 40 stays or 80 nights, plus $18,000 annual qualifying spend
• The Honors Society invitation-only tier

Diamond Reserve seems roughly equivalent to Marriott’s Ambassador Elite but with about 20% lower requirements. In terms of benefits, one confirmed perk that Diamond Reserve will have is the Confirmable Upgrade Reward. Milestone rewards are also evolving accordingly – for example, at 120 nights you can now choose a Confirmable Upgrade Reward.

Other perks, if I hazard a guess, could be like the Your24 from Marriott Ambassador. In terms of the Honors Society, it’s not going to be relevant to the majority of us.

Alongside these new tiers, the qualification requirements for the existing levels are being reduced:

Tier	Current Requirement	New Requirement
Silver	10 nights / 4 stays / 25,000 points	7 nights / 3 stays / 17,500 points
Gold	40 nights / 20 stays / 75,000 points	28 nights / 14 stays / 52,500 points
Diamond	60 nights / 30 stays / 120,000 points	42 nights / 21 stays / 84,000 points

A clean, across-the-board 30% reduction, quite a major change. It will soon become much easier to earn Hilton elite status for regular stayers. Not sure about the motivation behind this – perhaps because it’s already very easy to earn status through credit cards in the U.S., Hilton decided to lower the thresholds globally to balance things out?

Given the timing, it’s likely these new rules will take effect starting in 2026. What do you think of the changes?