You can qualify for Hilton Honors Diamond status through three different ways (in one calendar year):
- 30 stays (stay = one ore more consecutive nights in one hotel)
- 60 nights (can also be consecutively)
- 120,000 base points (= US$12,000 (~€9,935) revenue without taxes)
Depending on if there is a Hilton Honors credit card available in your country, there may be a fourth way: If you do enough revenue with your credit card in a calendar year, you may be able to earn Diamond status that way too. Or if you are based in the US, you may be able to immediately receive Hilton Honors Diamond status by simply applying for certain American Express credit cards such as the Aspire.
In my opinion, the easiest way in Europe is to do 30 stays. At first, 30 stays may sound like a lot. But with a simple but very effective trick, it’s not as hard as it may seem at first.
Specifically, a lot of Hilton hotels are directly next to each other. This way you can increase the amount of your stays by simply switching daily from one hotel to the other. If you are a Hilton Honors Gold status holder already, you can also use late check-out in the one hotel and early check-in in the other hotel. Therefore you will not have any gap in between.
Cities
In the following cities, Hilton hotels are directly next to each other. Of course, this not an exhaustive list. If you know additional Hilton hotels that are next to each other, please let us know in the comments.
Europe
- Germany
- Frankfurt am Main: Hilton Airport + Garden Inn Airport
- Munich: Hampton City West + Garden Inn City West
- Great Britain
- London: DoubleTree ExCel + Hampton Docklands
- Poland
- Krakow: DoubleTree Convention Center + Hampton
North America
- USA
- Chicago: Hampton Downtown + Garden Inn Downtown Riverwalk + Curio LondonHouse
- Houston: Homewood Suites Galleria + Embassy Suites Galleria
- Minneapolis: Hilton + DoubleTree Suites
- New York
- Orlando: Homewood Suites Lake Buena Vista + Garden Inn Lake Buena Vista
Oceania
- Australia
- Darwin: DoubleTree Esplanade + DoubleTree
Asia
- Thailand
- Bangkok: DoubleTree Sukhumvit + Hilton Sukhumvit
Conclusion
Because Hilton hotels are so widely available, there a lot of opportunities to optimise your stay amount. Of course you shouldn’t overdo it and try to get the Diamond status with 30 stays and only 30 nights. But if you are only missing a few stays, this can be an excellent way to easily boost your stay amount.
For example, I wanted to reach Diamond status this year and missed a few stays. I therefore decided to collect 4 stays on my recent Krakow visit by switching the Hilton hotels daily.