Hotel employees enjoy countless perks. One of the most common ones is discounted stays for themselves, and often for friends and family as well.

Of course, there are several other useful perks, but nothing beats heavily discounted hotel rates, especially if you love traveling.

IHG has IHG Employee Rate program and Marriott has Marriott Employee Rate Program.

Both offer discounts for friends and families as well.

Similarly, Hilton has its Go Hilton Program. If you’re a Hilton team member/employee or have connections to one, this program can be a great way to save money on your travels.

Go Hilton Program: Team Members, Employees, Friends, and Family Discount Program

Hilton offers some of the most amazing discounts for its employees (and other Team Members) and their friends and family.

It’s not very complex a system, either. However, it’s better to understand the differences before you go ahead and book your stay.

Go Hilton program is divided into various discount programs.

Go Hilton: Team Member Room Rate for Employees

As the name implies, the Go Hilton Team Member rate is the rate offered by Hilton strictly for its employees only.

Hilton now allows Go Hilton Team Member rate for one designated spouse or partner as well. The partner can use the rate even if the employee is not traveling or staying with them.

Go Hilton Team Member Rates are fixed and don’t fluctuate with market rates. Availability is generally pretty good, except for a few occasions where a hotel’s occupancy is close to full.

These rates are exclusive of taxes.

Interestingly, these rates are per room, and you can have as many occupants as allowed by the room type. You don’t pay anything extra for additional guests staying in the same room.

e.g., If you book a Go Hilton Team Member rate for one night for $35, you pay the same for an occupancy of 3 as well. Provided the room type permits 3 guests.

Other benefits

• Resort fee is waived for Go Hilton Team Member Rates and all resort amenities should still be made available to the employee.
• In the EMEA and APAC regions, this rate includes breakfast for all guests in each room.
• You can book up to 1 year in advance.

Limits for Go Hilton Team Member Rates

You can increase these limits by combining them with Extra rates and booking team members and friends and family rates for one trip. More on it in a bit.

How to book Go Hilton Team Member Rates?

To book team member rates, you need to use your Hilton Lobby ID on the Go Hilton lobby page here.

You can link your Hilton Honors account as well as connect friends and family accounts from here. If you don’t have a Hilton Lobby ID yet, contact your manager, and they should be able to help.

Important: Go Hilton Team Member Rate should not be booked at the property the Team Member regularly works at.

Forms required at check-in for Go Hilton Team Member Rates

Fortunately, now you don’t require any authorization form or paper passports that were mandatory in the past.

You do need to provide a photo-id during check-in.

Remember, Team Member Rate is for employees/team members or their designated spouse/partner only, and they need to be present at the check-in and for the entire duration of the stay.

You cannot book Team Member Rate for anyone else, including family and friends. There is another rate for that.

Go Hilton: Friends and Family Room Rate

Unlike Team Member Rates, the Go Hilton Family & Friends Rate can be used by the team member’s friends and family for their personal stays.

Go Hilton Family and Friends rate gets you a discount of 35% to 50% on the best available rate for the night.

This is a substantial discount, whichever way you look at it.

Unlike Team Member Rate, Go Hilton Family and Friends rate doesn’t include breakfast and, I am guessing, no resort fee waiver either.

Limits for Go Hilton Family & Friends Rate

How to book Go Hilton Family & Friends Rate?

Booking a Go Hilton Family & Friends rate is a 2-step process.

1. Hilton team member adds the Hilton Honors Account number of a family or friend to their Go Hilton account from their lobby page for Go Hilton program.
2. Once added, the friend or family member can book their discounted stay on Go Hilton Page.

Once the friend or family member’s account is linked to the team member account, they can book as many stays as they want without needing approval from the team member.

However, the team member/employee is free to add and remove linked members as and when they want.

Some hotels may insist that the Team Member should be present even for ‘Family & Friends’ booking. However, that’s not the case. Hilton Go terms clearly state that:

Authorized family/friends can travel without the authorizing Team Member when staying under their own Family & Friends rates, but the family/friends do need to make their own reservations by signing into the Go Hilton booking site with their own Hilton Honors account.

Be careful, your job is on the line.

It’s important to understand that the perks you get at Hilton hotels, as an employee, are linked to your employment.

Adding strangers to Friends and Family can land you in trouble. If the guest misbehaves at the property, or if the hotel finds anything suspicious, they could report it to the management. Not good for an employee. And not worth for strangers or ill-mannered relatives.

Selling, purchasing, auctioning, bartering, etc., are clearly against the rules. As per Hilton’s policy, all such activity is strictly prohibited and will result in loss of Go Hilton privileges for the applicable Team Member and/or Family & Friends and can also result in disciplinary action for the Team Member, up to and including termination.

‘Extra’ rates for virtually unlimited discounted stays

30 nights per year can be booked for ‘Team Member Rate’ and 70 for ‘Friends & Family Rate’. A team member can book the Family & Friends rate for themselves as well.

That’s a total of 100 nights per year.

However, with Go Hilton ‘Extra’ Team Member Rates and Go Hilton ‘Extra’ Family & Friends rate, you can book more rooms over and above your quota of 100.

Simply put, the nights booked under the ‘Extra’ category do not count towards the annual room quota.

What’s the difference between regular Go Hilton rates and Go Hilton ‘Extra’ rates?

To understand the difference, let’s first understand how the quota allocation for the rooms works.

Standard rooms available under Go Hilton rates are allotted automatically by the Hilton booking system basis the expected occupancy, prices, history of bookings at the hotel, etc.

Hotels don’t have a say in that. It’s a Hilton system.

However, some hotels might feel that they can allot more rooms than the quota for Go Hilton Program. It could be during the off-season period, new property launches, etc.

Whatever be the reason, the extra rooms made available by the hotel for the program fall under Go Hilton’s ‘Extra’ rate.

How do you book Go Hilton ‘Extra’ rates?

The process of booking ‘Extra’ rate is the same as the regular one. You need to book the same on the Go Hilton page.

If there is a room available under the ‘Extra’ category, it will show as “EXTRA TEAM MEMBER” or “EXTRA FAMILY-FRIENDS” or “GO HILTON EXTRA TMTP” or “GO HILTON EXTRA FFTP” on the results and booking page.

Since the ‘Extra’ rates are not counted towards your quota, it is better to book rooms under the ‘Extra’ category if both regular and extra rates are available.

Go Hilton: Food & Beverage Discount

Hilton Team Members get straight 50% off on F&B globally. The only catch is that the restaurant should be under the same management company as the hotel. This offer is not applicable at leased restaurants.

There are a few other things to remember. This is a Go Hilton discount. That means you should be staying at the property in a room booked with an eligible Go Hilton rate – Team Member or Family & Friends. However, the team member should be staying at the property.

The Team Member can avail of the discount for self plus 5 guests dining together.

In the United States and in locations with certain legal requirements, the F&B discount does not apply to alcohol.

Go Hilton Long Tenure Travel Program

If you have 10 years or more of service under your belt, you can access the Go Hilton program for life.

Even if you are no longer an employee or a team member of Hilton.

Here are the benefits available under the Go Hilton Long tenure Travel Program.

Even though the members have access to the Family & Friends Rate, the stay can be used for the member’s personal stay only. It can’t be booked for anyone else.

The rest of the process and conditions remain the same as for the respective rates.

Your Hilton Honors Elite Status and Go Hilton

Most would assume with such attractive rates and benefits thrown in, it’s a little too much to expect Hilton Honor points on the stays as well.

Well, I am glad to inform you that’s not the case.

You will earn Hilton Honor points on your stays, you will get status night credits, and you will be provided with elite status benefits as well.

Hilton is leaving no stone unturned here to make the program great for its employees.

Go Hilton: Eligible Team Member

Whether you are booking the Go Hilton Team Member Rate for yourself or the Family & Friends rate for someone else, you need to be an eligible ‘Team Member’.

Here’s what Hilton considers an eligible team member:

• Active employees at Hilton corporate offices, Hilton owned/managed properties, Hilton Grand Vacations (HGV) locations, and active on-property employees at independently owned and operated franchised hotels.
• This includes all regular full-time and part-time staff and seasonal staff, as long as they are actually employed by Hilton and/or the hotel and work a regular schedule.
• All active business partners working at Hilton Reservations & Customer Care (HRCC) centers
• Owners Club Members.

NOT Eligible Participants:

• On-call and other temporary staff who do not work a regular schedule.
• Independent third-party contractors employed by Hilton and/or the hotel, even if they have a Hilton e-mail address.
• Above property franchisees and management company representatives not working on the property.

Tips to make the most of Go Hilton Offer

• Check the Flexible Dates box and compare dates with availability to get the best rates for every night of your stay.
• The employee rate may not be available for consecutive nights, so create separate bookings using your family and friends as well, with different rates across nights.
• Use your Hilton Honors points or perks and American Express credit card anniversary reward nights in addition to your Go Hilton Discounts for higher demand dates.
• Book your stay as soon as possible for maximum availability.
• Check back often since more rooms might become available in the future.
• You can stay among different hotels where the lowest rates are offered.
• If there is an ‘Extra’ rate available, use that first to save your annual quota.

Conclusion

Go Hilton is an excellent program. Probably the best employee rate program out there. In fact, no other program is so rewarding for family and friends.

Now, excuse me while I go and look for a Hilton employee I can be friends with.