What is ALON?

I am planning an award stay at the Hilton Waikoloa in late March. I was reading over on FT about Gold status upgrades and came across ALON awards being available for a much lower points rate than what I booked at.

Can anyone explain what ALON is?

I couldn't find it on wiki: http://milepoint.com/forums/wiki/hilton-hhonors-glossary/

Thanks in advance!

I think you mean AXON? That's a four-night award available only for category 5 & 6 & 7 for four-night stays for American Express Hilton cardholders.

Or perhaps you meant GLON, which is a different award category also available for longer stays for category 3 and higher.

Charts can be found in this blog post.

This is a good overlay of which is the best value. (FT link, including an image that may or may not show if you aren't a member, not sure.)

The discussion I see says ALON. Maybe they made a mistake?
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilton-hhonors/509302-hilton-waikoloa-village.html#post1170406

Interesting, never heard of ALON, have heard on GLON and AXON!

It is one of the old awards that gave 6 nights at Hawaiian resort (Aloha Spirit Reward). I don't think it is offered any more.

Interesting, thanks for the update!

After closer look, I suppose that '01 info would indeed be a bit old by now. Thanks for the clarification.

was a great deal, only 100,000 HHonors, I redeemed at least a few of those.

Learn something new every day!

Thanks to MP and it's great members!

you mean how great Hilton used to be?

Avoid the Ocean Tower at the Hilton Waikaloa - it's like a Hitchcock movie - THE BIRDS! Check out the Mololo Room for some cold beers and the best poke on the island...aloha.

Going to try for the lagoon tower. I think that will be best situated for my 8 and 10 year olds to get to the pool.
I also read somewhere that there is a shortcut to the parking lot thru the spa area at the lagoon tower.

Yes ALONs were great especially when you were able to further discount those awards by the use of 20K discount certs that HH sent out annually (which had no expiration) to all Gold and higher members and even better. Mutual account members got two of these annually
Just imagine 6 nights at the HH Hawaiian Village or the HWV for 80k points.

STOP, I'm getting misty eyed

Ok ok I hate to see an grown man cry

Ahhh!
I just forked over 147K for 4 nights at HWV!

Are those AXON awards up to date? The AMEX HH card page mentions 145k for a cat 6 award of 4 nights.

http://www304.americanexpress.com/getthecard/learn-about/Hilton-HHonors

I hope that's something different I'm looking at because I'm wanting to use two AXON awards in Europe this summer...

It still holds true - with one change it is 145K for 4 nights for cat 7 and 125K for cat 5 and 6. Of course there is no reason to use it for cat 5 as VIP award for 4 nights will be 119K.

then what is that amex is talking about on their site? just a coupon code or what? it seems purpose designed to confuse imo

I provide the answer in post #4 of that same FT thread (which deals specifically with AXON):

Still great when you can pick up 50,000 or 60,000 points for a CC sign-up, get a Diamond status with Hilton spending, etc. 145,000 AXON7 awards are a great deal... just trying to stay positive with this chain.

Remember, Hilton created Category 7 in 2009, before that time Category 6 was the top one. So it used to be AXON5 for Category 5 hotels (125,000HH) and AXON6 forCategory 6 hotels (145,000HH), at that time highest category. So, when Hilton Hotels created this new Category 7 tier, it meant that AXON6 became AXON7 (145,000H) and AMEX kept AXON5 and made both AXON5 and AXON6 as the same redemption level (125,000HH). As pointed out earlier, AXON5 is not a good redemption, but more a by-product of this switch-over, as it never went away.

Now you will probably read in this same thread on FT or any post prior to 2009 (I just assume it), that AXON6 is somehow 125,000 HH point. That was true for a long time, but then AMEX raised the redemption by 20,000 points from 125,000HH to 145,000 HH. If I recollect correctly, it sort was a 6-month prelude to creation of Category 7 hotel, and their eventual AXON7 award. Therefore, the price of AXON for TOP CategoryHotle went up to 145,000HH and stayed there since 2009. IMHO, AXON awards are best value for Hilton Honors point redemptions.

Cheers,

PedroNY

Some these "explanations" make my head hurt... one thing I do know is that AXONs are not usable at WA properties which are in fact the top HH catagory.

LOL, agreed... maybe it is due to way too much time spent in the Hilton program.

You are correct, traditional WA properties, you cannot use AXON awards as they are not Category 5-7 hotels, they are their own tier.