Go Hilton Employee Program – The Ultimate In-Depth Guide
PointsCrowd is a community-supported platform. When you apply for a credit card, make an order, or otherwise interact with the advertisers through the links on this page we may earn an affiliate commission. This helps us maintain and develop the platform further at no cost to you.
The Go Hilton Employee Program is a special discount program for Hilton employees and their friends and family that offers significant discounts on Hilton hotel stays. Through this program, Go Hilton team members can book rooms at fixed low rates for employees and provide special discounts for up to 30 family members and friends.
The program offers the most generous employee discounts in the hospitality industry and is designed to make leisure travel more affordable for Hilton team members and their loved ones.
This comprehensive guide covers everything you need to know – from who is eligible and how to register, to the discounts you can get, booking procedures, insider tips on how to get the most out of it.
Eligibility & Enrollment
Who Qualifies
The Go Hilton program is open to all Hilton team members (full-time, part-time, and seasonal employees with regular work schedules). This includes:
- employees of Hilton corporate and managed properties
- employees of franchised properties who are officially on the Hilton payroll
- Members of the Owners’ Club (persons who own 25% or more of Hilton properties)
Eligibility for the discount occurs immediately upon hire, with no waiting period – new team members can start enjoying the benefits as soon as they are logged into the Hilton system.
Enrollment Steps
Once these steps are done, the employee’s Hilton Honors account is flagged for Go Hilton rates.
To access Go Hilton rates, employees must link their account through Hilton’s internal system and Hilton Honors loyalty program.
1. Hilton Honors Account
If you don’t have one, create a Hilton Honors account (the free loyalty program). If you already have one, you’ll use it – there’s no need to create a separate account.
2. Link via Hilton’s Lobby
On Hilton’s internal online portal (“Lobby”), go to the Go Hilton enrollment section. Go to My Application (“My app/Reports”).
3. Go to the “Go Hilton Account (Enroll/Manage)” page.
4. Link your Hilton Honors account to your Team Member profile.
This step verifies your employee status and activates the special rates on your Honors login.
Agree to program terms/code of conduct. Hilton emphasizes professional behavior when using the benefit, as misuse can lead to loss of privileges.
5. Add Family & Friends
Through the Lobby portal, add the names and email addresses of up to 30 authorized “Family & Friends” who you want to share your discount with (We’ll cover the Friends & Family details more in the next section).
From then on, simply logging into the special Go Hilton booking website (or Hilton’s site/app with the proper sign-in) will unlock the discounted rates for you and your added friends/family.
The program’s flexibility is a huge perk – “Family & Friends” can be anyone the employee chooses (not just immediate family) as long as the employee registers them. However, note that once a friend/family member is added, they generally remain on the list. Hilton’s system doesn’t allow frequent swapping of names to prevent abuse. If someone no longer needs access, employees can mark them as “inactive,” but you have a maximum of 30 people on the list at any given time.
Choose your list wisely (e.g. close friends, siblings, parents, in-laws, etc.), and make sure they understand the rules because their behavior can affect your eligibility (more on that in Tips). Selling or charging money for access to your list is strictly forbidden.
Spouse/Domestic Partner Benefit
A newer feature is the ability to share your own Team Member rate with your spouse or domestic partner even when you’re not traveling with them. You can designate one spouse/partner in the system. That person can then book Team Member rate rooms (the deeply discounted employee-only rate) without you present – but it will count against your personal annual allotment of discounted nights. Choose the spouse/partner designation carefully (the system only lets you set it once without special approval).
This is great for letting a spouse enjoy your employee discount on their solo trip, but remember it uses your employee night quota.
Post-Employment and Lifetime Perks
Typically, the Go Hilton benefit ends when employment ends – you must be actively employed to use the program. Hilton requires departing employees to cancel any future Go Hilton bookings and they lose access immediately.
However, Hilton offers lifetime travel perks for long-term service: team members with 10+ years at Hilton keep Friends & Family rates for life, and those with 20+ years get both Team Member (employee-rate) and Friends & Family rates for life. This means career veterans can enjoy Hilton discounts even in retirement – a unique perk Hilton calls the “Go Hilton Lifetime” benefit. (By contrast, Marriott offers a Quarter Century Club with some free stays after 25 years, but not lifelong employee-rate access like Hilton does.)
Benefits & Perks of the Team Member Travel Program
The Go Hilton program is prized for its generous discounts and extras. There are two main types of rates: Team Member rates (for employees) and Friends & Family rates (for the employee’s authorized users).
Go Hilton Team Member (Employee) Rates
These are deeply discounted flat rates available to Hilton employees for their personal travel. The rates are fixed by hotel category, regardless of the normal room price – making them an incredible deal at expensive properties.
Currently, Go Hilton Team Member rates (per night, including taxes) are approximate:
- $35 USD at Hilton’s budget brands (Hampton, Garden Inn, Homewood Suites, Home2 Suites, Tru),
- $45 USD at core brands (Hilton Hotels & Resorts, DoubleTree, Embassy Suites, Tapestry Collection),
- $55 USD at upscale brands (Curio Collection, Canopy, Hilton Grand Vacations),
- $75 USD at luxury brands (Waldorf Astoria, Conrad).
These low rates apply to standard rooms and are the same worldwide – so whether a Hampton Inn normally costs $150 or $300 a night, an employee pays $35.
Included Perks
Hilton’s employee rates come with some extra goodies:
No resort fees: Any mandatory resort or destination fees are waived on Team Member bookings.
50% off food & beverage: At Hilton properties globally, employees get a 50% discount on food and drinks during their stay (usually this covers hotel restaurants and bars). This can save a lot on dining, and it’s valid even in the USA where free breakfast isn’t automatic.
Free breakfast for two (international): Outside of the USA, Hilton gives Team Member-rate guests complimentary breakfast for two. (In the U.S., instead of free breakfast, you’d use the 50% F&B discount or your Hilton Honors elite benefit if you have status.)
Hilton Honors benefits: Staying on a Go Hilton rate still earns you Hilton Honors points and elite night credits, and if you have elite status, you still receive your perks like upgrades, late checkout, or lounge access. In fact, Hilton confirms that all standard Honors benefits (upgrade eligibility, etc.) apply on these employee-discount stays.
Go Hilton Friends & Family (F&F) Rates
The program doesn’t just benefit employees – it extends to your loved ones. Each employee can register up to 30 people as their Friends & Family to share discounts. Those individuals get access to the Friends & Family rate (F&F discount), which is a heavily discounted rate (up to ~50% off) standard hotel prices.
Technically, the F&F discount is “50% off the Hilton Standard Flexible Rate” at participating hotels. In practice it might be a bit less at times (hotels can yield-manage the discount between ~35–50% off), but often it’s around half price. Unlike the flat employee rates, F&F rates will vary by hotel and date since they’re percentage-based – but they can lead to huge savings, especially at pricey resorts.
For example, a friend rate could bring a $300 room down to $150. Friends & Family rates are tagged as “Go Hilton Family & Friends Rate” or “Go Hilton FFTP” when you search.
Do You Get Free Breakfast or Status Perks?
Friends & Family rate bookings do not include the extra perks like automatic free breakfast or 50% F&B discount (those are for employees only). However, friends/family can enjoy perks from any Hilton Honors status they have on their own – e.g. if your friend is a Diamond member, they’ll still get lounge access or free breakfast through their status when they stay at the F&F rate. And just like employees, they earn points and credits for their stays.
Essentially, the F&F rate is a deeply discounted Hilton rate for your connections, with no additional strings aside from needing to be on your list.
Room & Night Limits Of Go Hilton program
The Go Hilton program has some rules on how many rooms and nights you can book using the discounts:
- An employee can book up to 2 rooms at a time at the Team Member rate (for example, if you’re traveling with family and need two rooms). If two rooms are used, the employee must occupy one of them (the second could be for immediate family like kids).
- In addition, the employee can book up to 2 more rooms at the Friends & Family rate on the same dates. So in total, you could do up to 4 rooms in one stay using your benefits (2 on employee rate + 2 on friend rate). Each room, each night counts against the respective annual caps.
- Length of stay: Each reservation can be for a maximum of 7 consecutive nights at these discounted rates. You can’t book a stay longer than a week on the Go Hilton rates, and back-to-back stays at the same hotel to extend beyond 7 nights are not allowed (this is standard across such programs to prevent effectively living in the hotel on the cheap).
- Annual night caps: And Hilton limited the use to 40 nights per calendar year at the team member rate and 70 nights per year in total for all friends and family bookings.
The nights count whether you book one room or multiple – booking 2 rooms for 1 night uses 2 of your night credits.
Example: Suppose you go on two vacations this year, staying 5 nights each time on the Team Member rate (total 10 nights). Separately, your parents use 4 nights under a Friends & Family booking and a buddy uses 3 nights. You’d have used 10 of 40 employee nights, and 7 of 70 friends & family nights.
The counts reset each calendar year (unused nights don’t carry over). There’s no monetary “budget” – the limitation is purely on number of nights.
Additional tariff and other benefits
“Extra” Friends & Family Nights (Go Hilton Extra FFTP)
Occasionally, you might see a tariff called “Go Hilton Extra FFTP” when searching. These are Friends & Family rates that do not count toward the 70-night annual cap. They are offered at a hotel’s discretion (often when a property is very empty and happy to encourage more bookings). The pricing is the same as the normal F&F rate, but if you book the “Extra FFTP” version, those nights won’t reduce the employee’s 70-night balance. It’s essentially a freebie beyond the cap. These rates are less common, but if you have flexibility, it’s smart to choose a hotel with an Extra F&F rate so everyone can stretch the benefit further.
Hilton Honors status
Hilton employees can use any Hilton Honors status they have. Hilton generally gives Gold status to all of their employees, IIRC. If you have elite status through Hilton Honors, you add it to Go Hilton – which means possible room upgrades, bonus points, late check-out, etc. in addition to the discount.
Booking Process & Key Rules
So how do you actually use the Go Hilton benefits? It’s a specific process but quite straightforward once you’re set up. Below is a step-by-step guide for employees and their friends/family to book rooms at the special rates, followed by important rules to keep in mind.
Booking as an Employee (Team Member Rate)
- Access the Go Hilton booking site: All Go Hilton reservations are made through a dedicated portal. Go to www.hilton.com/go family and friends and log in with your Hilton Honors credentials (the account you linked in the enrollment step). You’ll be greeted by the Go Hilton dashboard upon signing in.
- Search for your hotel and dates: Enter your destination, dates, and number of rooms as usual. Make sure to select the “Team Member” rate filter if booking for yourself. There may be checkboxes or a dropdown for “Team Member” and “Family & Friends” – you can tick both to see all discounted options.
The system will show available hotels and the Go Hilton rates alongside standard rates. Look for labels like “TMTP” (Team Member Travel Program) for your rate and “Family & Friends” for the F&F rate. If a hotel is very full or not participating, the special rate might not appear (meaning it’s not available for those dates).
- Select the Go Hilton rate and room: Choose the hotel you want. On the room selection page, you’ll see the discounted rate listed as Go Hilton Team Member Rate or similar for employees, and/or Go Hilton Family Friends Rate for F&F. Pick the room type under the special rate.
Note that Team Member rates usually apply to base room categories; you might not see it for upgraded suites (the program is meant for standard accommodations).
- Complete the reservation: Continue to the payment page. Enter your details and a credit card to guarantee the booking (no charge upfront in most cases, since these are typically flexible rates, but check the cancellation policy).
Important: The name on the reservation should match the person who will check in*. For an employee booking their own stay, this is obviously your name. If you’re booking a second room under your name for your kids, that’s fine (you’ll be there to check in). If you’re booking a room for someone else without you, that person should use the Friends & Family procedure (below) – you cannot book your personal Team Member rate for someone else unless it’s your registered spouse using your account.
- Check the confirmation and policies: You’ll receive a confirmation email like a regular Hilton booking. Double-check it shows the correct “Go Hilton Team Member” rate.
- At Check-In: Bring a valid photo ID (driver’s license/passport). Employees should also carry their Hilton employee ID or a form of proof of employment, especially if staying at a Hilton property that may not know you. Many hotels do ask to verify employee status upon check-in for Team Member rate stays – e.g. a Hilton name badge, business card, or even just confirming your Hilton e-mail. (Hotels have access to a system that can verify active employees as well.).
Booking as a Friend/Family (F&F Rate)
If you’re one of the people on a Hilton employee’s Friends & Family list, you will book your own stays using the special rate – the employee doesn’t make the booking for you. Here’s how:
- Hilton Honors account: Make sure you have your own Hilton Honors account and that the employee has added that account (or your name/email) to their authorized list. You should receive an email when you’re added, prompting you to log in at the Go Hilton site.
- Log in to Hilton’s site: You will use the same portal (hilton.com/go) and sign in with your Hilton Honors credentials. The system knows you’re on an employee’s list, so it will show you the Friends & Family rates.
- Search and select Friends & Family rate: Just like the employee process, search for your hotel/dates, but ensure “Family & Friends” rate is selected in the filters (Team Member rate won’t be available to you). You’ll see the discounted rate listed as “Go Hilton Family & Friends” if available. Select it and complete the booking. You can book up to 2 rooms and 7 nights per stay under your friend’s benefit, which is quite generous. (Remember though, all your F&F bookings draw from your friend’s 70-night annual pot, so be considerate in usage.)
- Check-In: The reservation will be in your name, so just show your photo ID and normal check-in documents.
Friends/Family guests do not have visibility on how many of the 70 nights have been used across the group, so it’s wise for the employee to communicate if nearing the limit.
Payment for Go Hilton rate
These rates are cash, so you earn points as well. You can even redeem your free night certificates or Hilton credit card points for additional nights on the same trip if you want, but you’ll have to make a separate booking for that.
You can’t pay for Go Hilton rates with Hilton Honors points.
Combining with other discounts
Generally, you can’t combine a Go Hilton rate with other promotional codes, corporate rates, or AAA/military discounts – this is just one option. However, if you have an Honors offer (such as a 2x points promotion), you will still get it in addition to these discounts, as they are only available with club membership. Also, if you have a Hilton Honors Airline employee “Travel Industry” rate or similar, note that those are separate programs – you’d use one or the other for a given stay.
9 Insider Tips & Lesser-Known Aspects Go Hilton program
To get the most out of the Go Hilton program, keep these tips in mind:
1. Plan on availability
If your dates are flexible, use the “My Dates Are Flexible” search tool on the Go Hilton website. It will show you a calendar of when the hotel is offering Team Member or F&F rates. You may find that shifting your travel date by a day or two will get you a discount. Also, look for multiple Hilton brands in the area – if the Conrad is full, the Hilton or DoubleTree down the road might have a Go Hilton rate open. According to experienced employees, mid-range hotels tend to have more employee deals while high-end hotels may only have rooms available during off-peak season or at the last minute.
2. Utilize “extra” F&F nights whenever possible
Keep an eye out for “Go Hilton Extra FFTP” rates in your search results. Not every hotel has them, but if you see one, book it instead of the regular Friends & Family rate. As already mentioned, extra nights at the FFTP rate do not count towards the 70-night annual limit. It’s basically a free bonus.
For example, if you’re organizing a reunion and have a choice between two Hilton hotels, one of which offers Extra F&F and the other doesn’t, booking at the one with Extra can save you nights for future trips.
3. Communicate with friends/family
Since your friends who are using the discount cannot see how many of the 70 nights have been used, it is important that you coordinate if multiple people are using your discount.
Ask your friends to check with you before confirming a booking, especially if it’s an extended stay. This way, you can make sure you have nights available (and that no one friend accidentally uses a huge chunk of the 70 without letting others wait their turn).
Also, remind them of the 7-night maximum rule so they don’t plan an 8-night stay.
It’s up to you, but communication is key.
4. Behave and educate your guests
It sounds obvious, but it’s worth reminding them that a Go Hilton stay should be conducted in a respectful, discreet manner. Hilton provides incredible privileges and expects guests (especially friends and family members who enjoy the employee discount) to behave well. If someone on your list throws a wild party, throws trash in the room, or is a constant troublemaker, it could jeopardize your privileges.
Hilton may revoke an employee’s Go Hilton privileges if the invited guest behaves badly or breaks the rules. Therefore, politely inform your friends/family in advance – let them know to treat the hotel staff and property well, follow the cancellation policy and, of course, never try to resell the room or discount.
Most people will be polite, of course, but it never hurts to mention that this is your work perk and please don’t abuse it.
5. Do not abuse the booking rules
Avoid trying to book around the restrictions (Hilton’s system is pretty good at tracking this).
For example, if you need more than 7 nights, don’t make two reservations under different names to extend your stay – hotels will most likely notice and may cancel one of them. If you really need a longer stay, consider mixing your regular rate or points booking for extra days, or talk to the front desk to see if they will let you stay at a slightly higher rate for the extra nights.
In addition, an employee should not book two rooms at the Team Member rate and not stay in one of them – this violates the rule of your presence at the hotel. If you need more than one room but can’t attend in person, use the Friends and Family rate for another room so someone else can check in on their own.
6. Combine with elite status strategies
If you’re a Hilton team member who also likes to move from hotel to hotel for status, use Go Hilton in conjunction with status challenges or elite credit card stays.
For example, if you’re aiming for Hilton Diamond status (you may only have Gold through your job), staying at Go Hilton rates will still earn you nightly credits and base points. The Hilton Honors program often offers double-night promotions or bonus points that apply to these paid stays.
7. Use multiple employees in the family
If you have more than one Hilton employee in your family or social circle, you can join forces.
Obviously, this requires knowing a few employees, but given the huge number of Hilton employees, this is not impossible among groups of friends.
8. Consider secondary markets
If you’re using Go Hilton for a vacation, sometimes well-known hotels in major cities (like the Conrad Maldives or Hilton Hawaii Village) may not be available to employees all the time. But neighboring or lesser-known locations may be open.
9. Keep up to date with policy changes
Hilton makes changes to the program from time to time. Keep an eye out for memos or news from Hilton. Subscribe to the relevant facebook.com page.
Following these tips will help you get the most out of Go Hilton without breaking the rules. Many Hilton team members are able to take their dream vacations and numerous days off each year using this benefit, saving thousands of dollars in the process. With smart planning and careful use, it truly is like a gold mine for travelers.
