“I’ve never been more excited about the business than I am today,” Chris Nassetta, president and CEO of Hilton, told a group of journalists in a recent roundtable interview conducted at the reborn Waldorf Astoria New York (“the hotel that literally invented luxury in the [hospitality] world,” he’d said).
Over the interview, Nassetta gave snippets of insight into the future of Hilton, including its strategy moving forward on acquiring new brands and launching new major partnerships, plus thoughts on Hilton Honors, new hotels in the pipeline and even a potential new venture for the company: student housing.
Here are the highlights of what travelers should expect (or not expect) from Hilton and its Hilton Honors loyalty program in the coming months.
Related: How to earn Hilton Honors points: From hotel stays to credit card spending
The future of Hilton Honors: A new status and Nassetta’s take on devaluations
Late last year, Hilton Honors launched an entirely new elite status level, Diamond Reserve, while also introducing a faster path to achieving Gold and Diamond status in 2026.
“We were getting to the point where our highest level, Diamond, had millions of members,” Nassetta said, adding that “it’s really hard to reliably deliver bespoke, on-property benefits with that many people across a distributed system in 115 countries.”
With the sheer volume of travelers reaching top-tier status, Hilton is now aiming to deliver a more authentic VIP experience to its most loyal guests. “That’s why we created a tier above [Diamond] — a much smaller group where we can confidently be more bespoke,” Nassetta said.
But as TPG previously pointed out, getting into Diamond Reserve is no easy feat; members must complete 40 stays or stay 80 nights and spend $18,000 in annual eligible spending to qualify. Both Gold and Diamond lowered threshold requirements.
Also last year, Hilton Honors members were shocked by multiple devaluations of top-tier properties, with some beloved hotels and resorts skyrocketing to 250,000 points per night.
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“In terms of devaluation, there’s no news here, and we’re not planning anything,” Nasessta said. The CEO was quick to add that redemptions are “not free” and that Hilton pays individual properties for redeemed award nights. Inflation, he said, has caused room costs to rise over the last five years and the program, in his view, hadn’t adjusted. “We’ve sort of absorbed it,” he noted, “but you can’t absorb it forever.”
We don’t know if 2026 will hold another shock devaluation, so it’s a great time to remind folks that the best practice is not to hoard points and miles — the sooner you can spend them after earning them, the more value you’ll likely receive, according to TPG’s own expert Ben Smithson.
Technology is front and center for Hilton
Hilton wants its technological experience for guests to feel like a full-on ecosystem that helps plan the perfect dream trip, deliver exceptional experiences while staying and help engage guests post-stay to provide an even more curated and personalized experience for their future trips.
Artificial intelligence will be key to this plan, Nassetta said, but he added that it will only be successful for Hilton because the company has spent years building a solid base system that can be expanded as technology changes (especially at the rapid rates we’re seeing right now). Hilton sees its tech infrastructure as a solid advantage.
These tools, Nassetta explained, might finally “crack the code on real-time problem resolution” and provide data points that help hotels resolve problems before they even happen, reducing friction for both guests and hotel staff.
On the Hilton Honors front, information is power — and the more Hilton learns about its members’ preferences, the more personalized the experience it can deliver to guests. While a full-on bespoke experience might be reserved for top-tier Diamond Reserve members, these tools, Nassetta suggests, will give all members some sort of customized experience, whether it’s automatically assigning you to a room type you prefer or cataloguing your previous culinary experiences and building a customized offer centered around food.
A potential pause on new brands
Over the last few years, Hilton has been busy buying up hotel brands, including NoMad and Graduate Hotels, and launching strategic partnerships with others, including Small Luxury Hotels (SLH) and nature-focused AutoCamp. It also created a new outdoorsy collection, Outset Collection, as well as a new brand focused on apartment-style stays.
But before launching into too many more ventures, Nassetta said he’s slowing down. “I’m tapping the brakes a little bit just to make sure all the births we’ve seen in the last couple [of] years” turn into “little toddlers that are good, constructive contributors to society.”
He did say “never say never,” while pointing out areas of opportunity that still remain on the table. “But I don’t see any of those on the horizon. I think what you’re going to see out of us is organic. And I think it’s in and around lifestyle and lifestyle adjacencies, most likely.”
Hilton might take one brand down a new avenue
Those “lifestyle adjacencies” might see one Hilton brand, Graduate Hotels, enter a new venture entirely: student housing, as well as a smaller-scale version of the hotel that’s easier to replicate and likely less expensive for owners.
“So I’ve talked about a brand underneath Graduate, maybe even ‘Undergraduate,’ for smaller college towns,” Nassetta teased, adding that Hilton customers and owners have also shown interest in furnished student housing tied to the Graduate brand in college markets.
Bottom line
While only time will tell what this year will actually look like for Hilton Honors loyalists, the company’s CEO suggested it might be a quiet one, at least in terms of devaluations, surprise brand launches or strategic partnerships. It might also be the year we finally see a major hospitality player fully lean into the technological advances that are reshaping society. And, for college students and their families, could this be the year student housing enters the loyalty space? We’ll be keeping track.
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