Family Trip To Europe: Booking a Free Stay at Waldorf Astoria Rome Cavalieri

On an upcoming trip to Europe, my parents and sister will be visiting Rome, Prague and Vienna. Rome is the very first stop and they’ll be spending four nights there. Our first order of business once tickets were booked was to select a hotel. They decided to go with the ultra-luxurious Rome Cavalieri, a Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Rooms there typically cost about 300 euros a night in the summer, but my parents booked it using their Hilton points. It really does look like an amazing property… the only negative is that they’re going to be visiting it without me as I’ll only be joining their trip in Prague!

The Rome Cavalieri is one of the top rates hotels in Rome and understandably so. The hotel description reads: Perched on 15 acres of private Mediterranean parkland overlooking the Eternal City, the Rome Cavalieri offers unparalleled experiences: 345 spacious guest rooms and 25 luxuriously appointed Suites; exclusive Imperial Club; supreme 3-star Michelin restaurant La Pergola; the world’s most prestigious art collection housed within a hotel, including an astonishing Tiepolo triptych; prestigious Grand Spa Club; immaculate service to deliver guests sublime memories.

Multi-Night Options with Points

Since my parents still had a little over 160,000 Hilton HHonors points sitting in their accounts, this was a good opportunity to use them. The Waldorf Astoria Rome Cavalieri is a Category 9 hotel and costs 50,000-80,000 points a night depending on season. Of course, during the popular summer months, it charges the highest peak season rates of 80,000 points a night. Fortunately, there are a few multi-night options with points.

• The AXON award allows booking four nights for 260,000 points total and this is available to holders of the co-branded American Express Hilton cards.
• The fifth night free award costs a total of 320,000 points for five night.

I probably would not recommend collecting that many Hilton points from scratch. My parents’ situation was a bit different as they already had a bunch of Hilton points. For those that find themselves in the “many Hilton points” boat already, then the Waldorf Astoria Rome Cavalieri is certainly a tip top hotel to redeem them for.

A Better Option for Free Nights

In my opinion, a better option is the Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve Card offers two free weekend nights at any participating Category 1-10  Hilton property after spending $2,500 within 3 months. The Rome Cavalieri is one of the options to redeem these free nights and is an excellent use of the free night certificates. In addition, you get Hilton Gold status for the lifetime of the card and can enjoy the Gold status benefits. I have this card myself and you can find it in my Credit Card Deals.

Earning the Points or Free Nights

My parents decided to go for the four night option, but were about 100,000 points short of the 260,000 point goal. The Hilton Amex Surpass card was offering 75,000 points after spending $3,000 and came with Hilton HHonors Gold status. As we can see, even a single night at a top hotel costs more than the entire sign-up bonus for the card so I wouldn’t recommend this credit card under normal circumstances. However, to top up for an award that includes a four night stay at the ultra-luxurious Waldorf Astoria, it’s a worthwhile card for them.

The 75,000 point sign-up bonus would bring them to 235,000 meaning they’d need to earn 25,000 more to redeem the four nights. The Hilton Amex Surpass card offers 6 points per dollar at grocery stores. They bought Visa prepaid gift cards and took them to Walmart to load to the Bluebird. The Hilton American Express isn’t my favorite card to use for grocery store rewards and I’d much rather use the Blue Cash Preferred Card, which offers 6% cash back on the first $6,000 a year spent a grocery stores. However, again, this was for topping up for an award. $4,000 later they had the points they needed and were ready to book!

Booking the Stay

Once my parents had enough points, they had to call Hilton HHonors Customer Service to be able to book the four night stay for 260,000 points. This cannot be done online. A few minutes later, they had their stay booked and were on their way to picking their hotels for the next two cities… Prague and Vienna!