ANC-HNL Mileage Run – Staying in Hawaii

We typically stay at Marriott family hotels since I am a perennial Platinum, but this time I had a better deal.  Several things came together to point us to getting a great deal at Hilton.  First of all, we had gone to one of those Hilton timeshare presentations in Vegas and walked away with a certificate worth a $200 rebate off of one night’s stay which we needed to use by July.

Secondly, I had the Citi Hilton HHonors VISA which besides granting my Gold status, was having a promotion until 30 Jun to give 13 miles/  dollar on Hilton charges.  This card also grants a free night for $10,000 spend in a year, so has a lot going for it over other Hilton cards.  Finally, I found a special deal for military offering 15% off for military members which you can access here.  I had actually booked a room at $209/night and rebooked with this offer to bring it down to $179/night.  I guess that brought down my one night savings from the certificate, but the math works out on this being a better deal.

We often tried staying at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, but my wife finds that place a noisy zoo.  The other options were the Doubletree which is right across from Ft. DeRussy and the Hilton Waikiki which is the older property at the other end of Waikiki near the Marriott.  The latter had the cheaper rate, but my wife was afraid this would be some worn out hotel.

We got there and were pleasantly surprised.  We were upgraded due to my Gold status and found the 30th floor room quite nice.

The location turned out to be fine right on Kuhio as we had good access to everywhere by bus and even walked to the Hale Koa from there.  The free breakfast and lounge in the evening was nothing special (it certainly didn’t compare to the same at the Marriott) but this hotel came without a resort fee so how could I complain?

Admittedly all the hotels at this end of Waikiki look pretty old and could use a facelift as seen from this view from our hotel.

More on our adventures in Honolulu tomorrow.