Reaching the upper tiers of any travel related rewards program almost always takes money, time, effort, money and money — the rewards reaped should only be for the profitable consumer, right?
Occasionally, however, programs release shortcuts — ways that guaranteed high-dollar users can skip up a tier and enjoy the benefits — so that they can lock in a particular demographic or company. And when those shortcuts get published? That’s when people like you and I can sneak in from the back door.
Apparently, Canadian Aeroplan members were offered just this for the Hilton Honors program. From what I hear, by going to this link at the HHonors website, they could plug in code “CTHC”, sign up for an account and be catapulted all of the way up to Gold status. What a great shortcut. Not that I’ve tried it. But I hear it works great.
In case you’re wondering what the benefits of Gold status are at the Hilton family of hotels, membership gets a few nice small perks at checkin. Among the goodies are two of my favorites: access to the concierge level (where available), its free snacks and drinks, or free wireless internet among the network of hotels. Those alone are worth trying to get Gold status.