Hilton announced a promotion for Carlson Wagonlit Travel customers that’s kind of like an airline elite status challenge. Travelers stay four times within 90 days of registering for the promotion to get HHonors Gold Status. Update: Some people have reported getting the upgraded status within minutes of signing up - I have Hilton Silver and my status has not changed since signing up, so it’s very likely you can’t have elite status in order to get the Gold.Usually it takes 16 stays or 36 nights within a year to earn Gold Status (it’s the mid-tier status after Silver), so this could potentially save you a huge amount of time and money if you have some Hilton stays coming up (or can plan a few). As far as mid-tier status, Hilton Gold is one of (if not) the best of the major hotel chains.Gold Status gets you the following perks:• Complimentary high-speed internet access• Room upgrades based upon availability• 25% bonus on all HHonors Base Points with every stay• Complimentary Health Club access to hotel owned and operated facilitiesThe potential for room upgrades plus those bonus points (learn more about how to maximize your HHonors points earning) and the free internet are definite pluses in my book. Especially in Europe where internet can cost you in the neighborhood of 20 euros a day, that could be huge savings. You can find the full list of Gold benefits here.There are just a couple things to keep in mind. Because this promotion is in conjunction with Carlson Wagonlit you have to book your stay through them—still their prices are on par with booking engines like Orbitz and Expedia, so that shouldn’t be too much of an issue.Sign up for our daily newsletterEmail addressSign upI would like to subscribe to The Points Guy newsletters and special email promotions. The Points Guy will not share or sell your email. See privacy policy.The great thing about this promo is that you only need to register by December 31, 2013, so you’ve got a ton of time and can plan your travel accordingly since there’s no real time crunch. For instance, if you don’t have any travel coming up, wait until you have a particularly busy 90-day window and try to squeeze your four Hilton stays in there, and voila, you’ll have your Gold status. Once you earn Gold status, you’ll have that status for the remainder of the calendar year and the subsequent calendar year, so if you were going to try to maximize the potential of this promo, try to get your stays in early in 2013, and you could have Gold status through 2014, potentially almost two years!If you don’t have a Hilton HHonors account, you can sign up for one here.[card card-name=‘Citi® Hilton HHonorsTM Visa Signature® Card’ card-id=‘22145753’ type=‘javascript’ bullet-id=‘1’]
