theblakefish
Apr 12, 11, 7:24 pm
Howdy HH Board,
I have a situation that happened to me today with HH and wanted to pass it along to others so that the same mistake would not occur again. :-:
Like a lot of you, I drank from the cornucopia of Q3FN’s in the 2010 Q2 promo to the tune of 6 certs. These things are awesome (Maybe we could have another promo with these? Like soon? :D) and I used the first set at the Casa Marina in Key West over Turkey Day Weekend. In January, I was coming back from Germany and Austria through Amsterdam and stayed 1 night at the AMS Airport Hilton. Convenient but a bit expensive, I used a Q3FN there for that one stay as well. I made the reservation in late December, and called the Diamond Desk and asked if a certain Q3FN was still valid, and they said yes and I made the rez accordingly. With all leisure trips (both of these were as such) I wait for everything to post to my accounts and then delete the records, so I went on about my business.
Now, for many reasons :rolleyes:, I have been spending the majority of my hotel nights with Hyatt and SPG this year and do not check my HH account as much as I used to. So today, I was double-checking my HH account to see if my stays from the HGI McAllen and HGI South Padre posted from last week, and my point balance was much lower than I expected it to be. Shocked and a bit scared, I checked my account activity, I saw that a Cat 6 40k point certificate was issued on 3/30/11 without my approval! :eek: I called the Diamond Desk immediately, and they informed me that this occurred because one of the Q3FN’s that I used at the Casa Marina was used again at the AMS Airport Hilton. I stated that I had called and confirmed that the cert was valid at the time of the reservation, and that I was a bit confused. The DD rep transferred me to a very polite supervisor who did about 30 minutes of research, and she confirmed that this was so and HH automatically issued the cert for 40k points on 3/30 to cover the one night in AMS. :rolleyes:
Was I upset? Well, I stayed 2 nights on the same cert and someone had to pay, so I understand the loss of points on my end. :o Should I have done a better job of bookkeeping with my certs/points? No…I do not think that I should be penalized for shoddy bookkeeping by HH Hotels (almost 90 days to redeem a certificate?) and told the supervisor as much. @:-) She agreed and gave me 5k points as a goodwill gesture, which was very nice and was appreciated. ^
However, I wanted to use this as an example for other HH members to be sure that your Q3FN or other certificate is valid and not previously used yourself, because HH properties can take their time to get reimbursed and they are not prompt with their actions. @:-) Three weeks after staying at the Casa Marina, they had not redeemed my Q3FN :rolleyes: and almost 3 months after staying at the AMS Airport Hilton they finally redeemed that cert :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: and, thus, the 40k cert issuance.
Also, I am ultimately upset that HH did all of this without emailing or calling me to inform me of the situation. :td: Not that I would have paid for these excessively expensive hotels in the first place, but I stayed there because, based on the information given to me by HH Diamond Desk, I had a free night. I would have considered and probably would have stayed at a cheaper property or hostel instead of using my points, as they are valuable and I was saving them for a weekend in Asia at the end of this year. :(
It was shoddy bookkeeping by the hotel, poor tracking by HH, shady points transferring by HH upon realization by them, and a frustrated customer in yours truly. YMMV.
I have a situation that happened to me today with HH and wanted to pass it along to others so that the same mistake would not occur again. :-:
Like a lot of you, I drank from the cornucopia of Q3FN’s in the 2010 Q2 promo to the tune of 6 certs. These things are awesome (Maybe we could have another promo with these? Like soon? :D) and I used the first set at the Casa Marina in Key West over Turkey Day Weekend. In January, I was coming back from Germany and Austria through Amsterdam and stayed 1 night at the AMS Airport Hilton. Convenient but a bit expensive, I used a Q3FN there for that one stay as well. I made the reservation in late December, and called the Diamond Desk and asked if a certain Q3FN was still valid, and they said yes and I made the rez accordingly. With all leisure trips (both of these were as such) I wait for everything to post to my accounts and then delete the records, so I went on about my business.
Now, for many reasons :rolleyes:, I have been spending the majority of my hotel nights with Hyatt and SPG this year and do not check my HH account as much as I used to. So today, I was double-checking my HH account to see if my stays from the HGI McAllen and HGI South Padre posted from last week, and my point balance was much lower than I expected it to be. Shocked and a bit scared, I checked my account activity, I saw that a Cat 6 40k point certificate was issued on 3/30/11 without my approval! :eek: I called the Diamond Desk immediately, and they informed me that this occurred because one of the Q3FN’s that I used at the Casa Marina was used again at the AMS Airport Hilton. I stated that I had called and confirmed that the cert was valid at the time of the reservation, and that I was a bit confused. The DD rep transferred me to a very polite supervisor who did about 30 minutes of research, and she confirmed that this was so and HH automatically issued the cert for 40k points on 3/30 to cover the one night in AMS. :rolleyes:
Was I upset? Well, I stayed 2 nights on the same cert and someone had to pay, so I understand the loss of points on my end. :o Should I have done a better job of bookkeeping with my certs/points? No…I do not think that I should be penalized for shoddy bookkeeping by HH Hotels (almost 90 days to redeem a certificate?) and told the supervisor as much. @:-) She agreed and gave me 5k points as a goodwill gesture, which was very nice and was appreciated. ^
However, I wanted to use this as an example for other HH members to be sure that your Q3FN or other certificate is valid and not previously used yourself, because HH properties can take their time to get reimbursed and they are not prompt with their actions. @:-) Three weeks after staying at the Casa Marina, they had not redeemed my Q3FN :rolleyes: and almost 3 months after staying at the AMS Airport Hilton they finally redeemed that cert :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: and, thus, the 40k cert issuance.
Also, I am ultimately upset that HH did all of this without emailing or calling me to inform me of the situation. :td: Not that I would have paid for these excessively expensive hotels in the first place, but I stayed there because, based on the information given to me by HH Diamond Desk, I had a free night. I would have considered and probably would have stayed at a cheaper property or hostel instead of using my points, as they are valuable and I was saving them for a weekend in Asia at the end of this year. :(
It was shoddy bookkeeping by the hotel, poor tracking by HH, shady points transferring by HH upon realization by them, and a frustrated customer in yours truly. YMMV.