How to Get Hilton Honors Gold Status for Free

Last year, I was tipped off about how to get FREE Gold status with Hilton HHonors, and it has come in handy during my travels to Dublin, Washington DC for the upcoming FTU and other business trips.  It looks like the offer is again open as detailed in a post by MilesQuest.    This is a great deal, as having Gold status at Hilton is a very nice perk that gets you among other things, FREE room upgrades (when available – I got a suite in Dublin), free breakfast and free internet.

Gold Sta­tus Benefits

• Free in room wire­less inter­net access.
• Free con­ti­nen­tal break­fast except at Wal­dorf Asto­ria Properties.
• A space avail­able upgrade to the exec­u­tive floor or the next best avail­able room type as well as access to the exec­u­tive floor lounge when upgraded to that par­tic­u­lar floor.
• Earn extra 2.5 points per dol­lar spent on paid stays.
• 2 Complimentary Bottles of Water per stay (Waldorf Astoria^® Hotels & Resorts, Conrad^® Hotels & Resorts, Hilton Hotels & Resorts, DoubleTree by Hilton™, Embassy Suites™, Hilton Garden Inn^®, Hilton Grand Vacations^®)
• eCheck-in: Select your room and check in 24 hours in advance at participating properties
• Com­pli­men­tary access to Fit­ness Centers/Health Clubs.

The stan­dard way to get Hilton Gold sta­tus is to com­plete 16 stays or 36 nights, or obtain a branded credit card to earn Gold status. You can get Gold Sta­tus by sign­ing up for the Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve card, which gives Gold sta­tus to all card mem­bers as long as they hold the card. However, MileQuest shows how you can piggyback on an offer to residents of Australia with a Visa Infinity card and use this creative way to obtain Hilton Gold status for free. Fortunately, you don’t actually need those things — you only need to make Hilton think you do.

The terms say you must be a Visa Infinite cardholder and the offer expires May 31, 2013.

1.  Log in to your account (or create one if you don’t have one)

2. Go to this address generator to create a valid Australian address.

3. Change your profile to the Australian address.

4. Go to this website and create a credit card number. Click “Generate a Credit Number” and choose “Visa – Chase Manhattan Bank“. Don’t worry, you’re not generating an actual credit number someone owns. Replace the output with “4119 45xx xxxx xxxx” and hit generate.

5. Now go to the Visa Infinite landing page and enter the credit number from step 4.

6. Log out and log back in, you will have Gold status now. The benefits are here. You can now change your address back.

All of this effort takes less than 10 minutes and you’ll enjoy free breakfast and Internet at Hilton hotels for the next year.

Make sure you register before the window closes at May 31.