Hilton Honors now has more than 200 million members – and more ways to earn and redeem points

Hilton hit both a key loyalty milestone and record growth in the third quarter – further showing that the hotel giant is increasingly becoming a rival to the world’s largest hotel company, Marriott International.

The Hilton Honors loyalty program now has more than 200 million members, a sign of growth as industry analysts continue to wonder if the program could eventually surpass Marriott Bonvoy – which had more than 210 million members in the first half of the year. Marriott’s earnings call comes early next month, so that number will rise with new third-quarter numbers.

But Hilton is growing in more ways than loyalty members. The hotel company also reported total growth of 33,600 hotel rooms in the third quarter – a record pace of room growth of nearly 8% from the same period last year. Hilton has opened more hotel rooms in the past three months than in any other quarter in the company’s history.

“We continue to have more rooms under construction than any other hotel company, accounting for more than 20% of the industry share and a share that has already quadrupled,” Hilton CEO Christopher Nassetta said during an earnings call Wednesday morning.

It’s clear that some of Hilton’s new brands are driving significant growth — especially Spark, the company’s flagship brand that has grown largely through deals where existing hoteliers renovate and convert those properties to Spark brand standards.

Just announced early last year, Spark already has more than 6,000 rooms across the brand’s network. More than 20 Spark hotels opened in the last quarter, and Hilton is expanding the brand in Germany and Austria in addition to its presence in the US, UK and Canada.

“The product pipeline is three times larger than its existing offering, and we expect continued launches in international markets to improve Spark’s footprint, positioning us well for future growth in the premium economy space,” said Nassetta.

While Hilton is often seen as a bigger player in general and mid-market companies than Marriott, Nassetta appeared to take a swipe at that criticism on this week’s earnings call. He boasted that with the addition of nearly 400 hotels to the Hilton network thanks to a new partnership with the World’s Smallest Luxury Hotels, Hilton has the largest portfolio of luxury hotels in the industry.

Basically, there are more and more Hilton of all kinds of bags these days.

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