Hilton Partners With Lyft To Reward Honors Loyalty Members

Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc.’s (NYSE:HLT) award-winning guest loyalty program, Hilton Honors has partnered with the leading transportation network Lyft, Inc. (NASDAQ:LYFT) to reward more than 89 million Hilton Honors’ loyalty members.

The first of its kind travel and hospitality partnership will allow the members to earn Hilton Honors Points whenever they ride with Lyft. For each Lyft ride, the members will earn 3 points per $1 spent and 2 points per $1 on shared rides, for up to $10,000 in Lyft spend per year. Notably, the members will be able to redeem these points for Lyft credits later this year.

Additionally, members can earn reward points while shopping on Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) and others, and use them for free room booking at more than 5,700 hotels and resorts across the world. Notably, most of Hilton hotels in the U.S. and Canada are situated in an area where Lyft operates, making it more advantageous for the members. The loyalty members can link their accounts at Hilton Honors’ website.

Innovation Bodes Well for Hilton

Innovation has been one of the key growth strategies for Hilton. The company’s award-winning Hilton Honors is an extremely valuable asset for the company, with more than 89 million members associated with this loyalty program. In December 2017, it launched the Hilton Honors app in order to be the fastest-growing and lowest-cost distribution channel.

Moreover, the company’s loyalty program, Hilton Honors, is boosting occupancy rate. In 2018, occupancy for the loyalty program increased 20% from a year ago. Notably, in first-quarter 2019, Honors accounted for more than 60% of system-wide occupancy, up 170 basis points year over year, reflecting that members are also staying with the company more often.

Both Hilton and Lyft, which are customer-focused companies, have plans to enhance the travel journey for business and leisure travelers through digital products as well as new categories and experiences, going forward.

Notably, shares of the company have gained 27.7% year to date compared with the industry’s 17.1% rally. The upside can be attributed to the company’s better-than-expected earnings in nine of the trailing 10 quarters.



Zacks Rank & Key Picks

Hilton currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Some better-ranked stocks in the same space include Huazhu Group Ltd. (NASDAQ:HTHT) and Red Lion Hotels Corp. (NYSE:RLH) , each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Huazhu Group, which was previously known as China Lodging Group Limited, has a projected 2019 earnings growth rate of 22.6%.

Red Lion Hotels’ earnings for the current year are expected to grow 102.2%.

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