Lifetime Hilton Diamond

Many hotel chains will grant different loyalty levels depending on how often you stay each year, with each level giving more hotel perks. Since I started traveling for work in 2009, I’ve mostly used Hilton’s loyalty program. Hilton Honors has three levels: Silver (10 nights in a year), Gold (40 nights in a year), and Diamond (60 nights in a year). Most years, I’ve traveled enough to earn Diamond.

Hilton Honors also offers a Lifetime Diamond status for reaching at least 10 years of Diamond and 1000 nights in Hilton properties. I earned my tenth year of Diamond in 2022. Last week, I stayed my 1000th night at Hilton properties, earning me Diamond status forever.

Where I Stayed

Location Map

I earned 1000 nights across 382 stays at 205 different hotel properties.

My furthest Hilton from home was the West Hotel Sydney, Curio Collection by Hilton (New South Wales, Australia).

Brands

A number of hotel brands are part of the Hilton Honors program. I’ve stayed at twelve of them:

Hampton Inn is Hilton’s standard economy hotel that seems to be located everywhere. Since I travel to a lot of small towns where higher-tier hotels may not be present or common, it’s my most frequent Hilton brand. When available, I prefer to stay at Homewood Suites, which is an extended stay brand that typically provides a kitchenette, a living room, and a separate bedroom. With a total of 500 nights between them, these two brands together made up exactly half of my first 1000 nights.

Embassy Suites also typically offer a separate bedroom and living room, although they don’t have the kitchenette. They do probably have the best free breakfast of all the Hilton brands (with a cooked-to-order omelet bar), and the evening receptions are nice to have as well.

Hilton is the namesake brand, and generally a good hotel when I can get it. They don’t tend to be in a lot of the smaller cities I visit, or if they are they’re often above my employer’s per diem lodging rates. Still, the opportunity to stay there still comes up often enough that about one in every seven of my hotel nights was spent at a Hilton proper.

Hilton Garden Inn falls into a weird spot for me; in theory, it’s a slightly nicer version of a Hampton Inn, but it’s close enough that how recently it was built or renovated matters more than the brand—a new Hampton Inn often feels nicer to me than a dated Hilton Garden Inn. HGI also doesn’t offer free breakfast, and even though I get a meal credit as a Diamond member, it’s generally just more of a hassle than staying at a Hampton Inn. HGI is still not a bad hotel, but it’s not my first choice in the Hilton portfolio.

DoubleTree hotels are probably the least predictable of my common Hilton brands; they’re often hotels that Hilton bought from someone else, so their design varies quite a bit. They’re known for giving you a warm cookie at check-in, which is certainly welcome at the end of a travel day.

The remaining brands didn’t get many nights because they were either new, expensive, or not located in cities I visit frequently.

Progress by Year

I joined the Hilton Honors program (then Hilton HHonors) on 11 March 2009, after taking my first work trip that February. That year I was able to earn Silver (10 nights) and Gold (40 nights) status easily.

I didn’t earn Diamond until the next year, getting the 60th night required during a 29 November–3 December stay at the Hilton Orlando.

From then on, I was able to earn Diamond most years. My travel slowed a bit in 2012–2013 where I only earned Gold status, but picked back up in 2014. My travel in 2020–2021 was reduced due to COVID-19 (but since travel was down for everyone, most loyalty programs extended status expirations, so I never lost my Diamond).

I earned Diamond for the 10th time during a 19 June–1 July 2022 stay at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Jacksonville Baymeadows (Florida, USA). That 10th year of Diamond was one of the two requirements for lifetime status, but at the end of that stay I still only had 881 of the 1000 nights that were also required.

I kept on earning nights for the next few years, and finally got my thousandth night on 18–19 March, 2024, at the Hilton Lake Las Vegas Resort & Spa (Nevada, USA)—almost exactly fifteen years after I joined the loyalty program.¹

My Top 5 Most Visited Hotels

The five individual Hilton portfolio hotels I’ve spent the most nights at are as follows:

#5: Homewood Suites by Hilton Seattle Convention Center Pike Street

I attended PAX West a number of times, and usually stayed at one of two hotels by the convention center when I did: this Homewood Suites or the Hilton Seattle. It had a great location close to the entrance of what’s now known as the Arch building at the Seattle Convention Center. It was also reasonably close to a lot of Capitol Hill restaurants (if you don’t mind walking up the Pike Street hill).

I last stayed at this hotel in September 2022; unfortunately, it appears to have permanently closed since then.

#4: Embassy Suites by Hilton Tulsa I-44

Tulsa has been one of my most visited cities; I’ve spent 113 nights there, every single one of them at a Hilton property. So it’s not surprising that two of my top five hotels are in Tulsa.

I like Embassy Suites in general, with a good breakfast and reasonably large rooms. This one was in a good location by I-44 and the Broken Arrow Expressway, making it easy to get pretty much anywhere in the Tulsa metro area. I liked its general southwestern décor; though the hotel was a bit dated (as of my last stay in 2019), it felt dated in a comfortable way, if that makes any sense.

#3: Homewood Suites by Hilton Tulsa-South

This particular Homewood Suites was my other main Tulsa hotel. As a Homewood Suites it also had large rooms, and it was across from a shopping center, so there were a lot of restaurant options nearby.

#2: Homewood Suites by Hilton Dallas-Arlington

On my first work trip ever, from 9–13 February 2009, I stayed at this Homewood Suites. However, on this first stay, I had not yet signed up for Hilton’s loyalty program, so it didn’t count toward my 1000 nights.²

I signed up for Hilton Honors (then Hilton HHonors) when I got home. In April 2009, I had another trip to Arlington and stayed here again, making this the first Hilton I stayed at as a loyalty member—and thus the first of my 1000 nights.

#1: Hampton Inn & Suites Altus

Altus is not a large town, so there aren’t a lot of hotels to choose from. And though I’d often facetiously complain that this hotel was surrounded on three sides by cotton fields and the fourth side by an Applebee’s, I did grow to like this Hampton Inn as I stayed there over and over.

I made a large number of short trips to Altus, so addition to having my highest number of nights, this hotel is by far the hotel I have the most stays at.

I no longer have any reason to visit Altus, so my final stay at this hotel was 1–3 March, 2021. It may not be the best hotel I’ve stayed at, but I do miss it.

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