YOTEL Joins Hilton Honors: What It Means for Points Collectors

If you've ever walked through London Gatwick, Amsterdam Schiphol, or Paris Charles de Gaulle and spotted those sleek, capsule-style rooms tucked into the terminal, you'll know YOTEL. The brand has built a loyal following since its London launch in 2007 by doing something quite clever: taking the ethos of first-class cabin design and squeezing it into compact, city-centre and airport hotels. Clean lines, smart beds, and a no-faff experience – it's basically what budget travel should look like.

As of today (19 March 2025), Hilton has officially announced that YOTEL is joining its network – and more importantly for Hilton Honors members, points earning and redemption at YOTEL properties is on its way later in 2026.

Hilton has created a brand new category called Select by Hilton, designed to bring established, independent hotel brands into the Hilton ecosystem without erasing what makes them unique. YOTEL is the first brand to join, and the model is essentially a franchise arrangement – YOTEL keeps running its own properties with its own design and service style, but plugs into Hilton's distribution platform and the Hilton Honors loyalty programme.

It's a smart play from Hilton. Rather than building a new budget-lifestyle brand from scratch, they're absorbing one that already has traction: 23 hotels across 10 countries, a growing airport presence, and a well-regarded design language. YOTEL gets Hilton's nearly 250 million Honors members pointed at its hotels. Everyone wins, at least in theory.

Not quite yet. The official announcement states that the first YOTEL properties are expected to be available for booking through Hilton channels "later in 2026." So don't go hunting for them on the Hilton app today – nothing will show up yet.

Worth keeping on your radar, though. If you hold Hilton Gold or Diamond status – as I do through my Amex Platinum Business card – having YOTEL properties bookable within the Hilton ecosystem could be a genuinely useful addition, particularly for the airport locations (more on that in a moment).

YOTELAIR, the airport sub-brand, is where I think this gets most interesting for frequent flyers. Current YOTELAIR locations include:

Being able to earn Hilton Honors points for a Gatwick or Changi airport hotel stay would be a nice bonus. And if you're a Diamond member, being able to use your status benefits at an airport hotel before a long-haul flight has genuine appeal. It's the kind of integration that makes a loyalty programme actually useful in day-to-day travel, rather than just on big annual trips.

That said, I'd flag that YOTELAIR rooms are famously compact – they're optimised for a few hours' rest between connections, not for a leisurely Diamond upgrade experience. Manage expectations accordingly.

For UK-based travellers, YOTEL's city hotel footprint is worth a note. The brand currently has properties in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. If you're already chasing Hilton nights for status or simply want to earn Honors points on a domestic overnight, having YOTEL in the mix adds a few more options – especially in cities where Hilton's own brands have more limited representation.

Upcoming openings that might be of interest include Kuala Lumpur (2026), Athens (2027), Belfast (2028), and Lisbon (2028).

It's worth being clear that this announcement is high on intent and short on operational detail. At this point, we don't know:

On the redemption question, I'd expect YOTEL to sit at the more accessible end of Hilton's dynamic pricing – these are compact, smartly-designed budget-adjacent hotels, not resort properties. But that's speculation until the rates are confirmed.

If this has got you thinking about your Hilton Honors balance, the most efficient route for UK collectors remains the Amex Platinum Business card, which comes with complimentary Hilton Gold status and lets you transfer Membership Rewards points across to Hilton Honors. It's how I hold my Gold status, and it means I'm essentially earning Hilton points across all my everyday business spending without a dedicated hotel card.

There's also a standalone Hilton Honors debit card via Currensea if you're not in the Amex ecosystem, though the earning rates are more modest. And if you're newer to hotel loyalty and wondering which programmes are actually worth paying attention to, our hotel loyalty beginner's guide covers the landscape well.

It's also worth checking whether you qualify for a Hilton status match – our piece on the Hilton Honors status match route is worth a read if you want to fast-track to Diamond.

YOTEL joining Hilton Honors is a genuine positive for points collectors – the airport locations alone make this interesting, and the UK city presence (London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow) adds useful domestic earning options. The integration won't go live until later in 2026, so there's no action required today.

When booking details and earning rates are confirmed, I'll cover it. In the meantime, if you're not already building a Hilton Honors balance, it might be worth starting to think about it.