One of Hilton Honors’ most aspirational properties (and one of the points hotels that I most want to stay at) has just opened the award night floodgates…
Redeem points at the Waldorf Astoria Seychelles
The Waldorf Astoria Seychelles Platte Island opened in early 2024, and is located on a private island in the Seychelles. The 50-key property looks gorgeous, though award availability has been really tough to come by.
While Hilton Honors lets you redeem points for any room at a hotel, only the standard rooms typically have attractive pricing. This property has essentially created a small subset of rooms that are considered standard, so award availability has been virtually non-existent.
I’ve been wanting to plan a trip here, and yesterday was looking at award availability, and noticed that not a single night for the entire next year was bookable with points at a reasonable cost. Well, today it’s exactly the opposite — I see award availability virtually every single night over the next year.
The property charges 130,000 Hilton Honors per night for a standard room, and elite members get a fifth night free. This means that a five night stay would cost you 520,000 points, or an average of 104,000 points per night. If you’re like me and value Hilton Honors points at 0.5 cents each, that’s like paying $520 per night including all taxes and fees, which is amazing.
What’s interesting here is that the property seems to have gotten rid of its rubbish, fake “standard” room category, which was essentially the bedroom of a larger suite. It’s my understanding that the property would always upgrade guests from those rooms, since it was never full. But clearly that was done to limit award availability.
Now the standard rooms at the property appear to be the Hawksbill Garden Pool Villa. This also means that there’s way more award availability than before, and it’s also possible to book multiple rooms with points. The options here really are exciting.
Just keep in mind that since this is on a private island, you’ll have to pay €700 per adult for the transfer between Mahe Airport (SEZ) and the island. Furthermore, food, drinks, and activities, won’t be cheap, given that they have a captive audience.
Now, it’s anyone’s guess if this availability sticks around, or if this is even intentional. Regardless, I’ll take it. It’s my understanding that the hotel has consistently had very low occupancy, so frankly you’d think the property would want to encourage redemptions, since that’s some revenue, and on top of that, secluded resorts make a lot of money on incidentals.
This is the key to maximizing Hilton Honors points
Over the years, Hilton Honors has grown on me quite a bit, in no small part thanks to the easy Diamond status that can be earned with the Hilton Aspire Card. Hilton Honors points are easy to earn, though at times it feels like actually redeeming for good awards is like taking part in a lottery.
At Hilton’s top properties, it’s not uncommon to see almost no award availability for the entire bookable calendar. But then sometimes we see award nights made widely available, and those are the times you’ve gotta book. This is the perfect example of that.
Bottom line
The Waldorf Astoria Seychelles Platte Island has the most award availability I’ve ever seen, as virtually every date is bookable. This change seems to be because the standard rooms for redemption purposes actually match what most people would consider to be the standard accommodations here, rather than some made up room category.
So if you’ve been wanting to visit this property, now would be a great time to book.
Anyone plan on taking advantage of this Waldorf Astoria Seychelles award availability?