I wish Hilton could make it easier to use the gift cards by adding them to your account and having the ability to apply them to the room charges. I have 4 of 6 Hilton gift cards I been carrying around for over 5 years as I always have issues using them. I used to purchase them in person at the Hilton Hawaii Village (small gift shop behind the front desk) for the AMEX credit.
I usually have 10-20 Hilton stays per year but between stays without room charges, forgetting to use them before the system checks you out, finding employees that actually know how to apply them is always a challenge & asking the front desk when there is not a long line. I also had many brands such as Kimpton & Canopy tell me they don’t accept them at all.
Best chance to use them is right after you charge a meal to your room while its fresh on your mind & lobby is not busy go to the front desk and ask them to apply the GC to your room charges. For sure try to burn the entire value ($25 or $50) in one go. If you have a partial charge with $10 or less on the card you have to know the exact balance and it’s kind of that awkward moment for sure if you’re at some upscale Hilton resort telling the front desk, I have $5.35 on this gift card I would like to apply to my bill. You will get the twisted look as they try to figure out how to manually type the card #’s into the system while that have that are you kidding me look, Ha! That actually happen to me once, the front desk was so confused on how to use the gift card he said how about I just apply a $10 courtesy credit to your room, and he threw the card in the trash.
But for sure if you have a $50 use of lose AMEX credit then of course as a last resort get the gift cards, I’m holding on to my GC hoping one day Hilton will improve the system to make them easier to apply.
