Hilton HHonors - Sold out Hotel as Diamond VIP

Being a Diamond VIP, I have found that one of the best benefits is the ability to make a reservation at a sold out hotel, even though they usually charge an extremely high price for it.

This morning, I ran into a little snag while trying to use this benefit at the Las Vegas Hilton for a stay from 9/18-23. The nights of 9/19 & 9/20 are currently sold out while 9/18 is available for $119 and 9/21-22 are both available for $75. When I called the Diamond VIP desk, they offered me a price of $249 for each of the five nights even though only two of the nights we actually sold out. Unfortunately they couldn't budge and the only way they would be able to book me at the lower prices for three of the five nights was to book three separate reservations: 9/18, 9/19-20 and 9/21-22. If they did it that way, there was no guarantee I'd be able to stay in the same room for all five nights, as I'd have to check out then in then out and back in.

Does anybody have a suggestion on how to handle this with HH to book the entire stay at once and pay the higher rate for only the two sold out nights?

Thanks!

Mike

I have run into this problem before also and they only way I have been able to get the lower rate is to make the separate reservations. However, even though they have always said that they could not guarantee that I could stay in the same room , I have never had to actually change rooms. I have done this at least ten times at various hotels over the years.
Another thing to note. At some hotels even though I would check in with mmultiple reservations, they would keep the first night rate for the entire stay.

Terri

I too have used the nice Diamond "room even if sold-out" deal to get a room (once I got 2 rooms). It seems any time I was in a precedent as yours, ie "we can not guarantee you can keep the same room", I DID keep the same room every time but once. Another time I had to change rooms in a SAN Marriott from the concierge level (I was comped) to the non-concierge level as the whole concierge floor was taken over by a big dot-com company (itsa not so big now) at the last minute. They gave us 4 drink coupons/day, a free breakfast each day and free local telephone calls.

I would not worry about it. I would go to the FD early each supposed checkout day, explain your situation and request the same room. You will get it 99% of the time. I was told the reason is they do not assign rooms more than 1 day ahead.

MisterNice

Thanks you two! The advice will help!

Mike

Getting into a sold out property is a great feature.

I posted a reply recently in another topic about a small quirk in how this works, http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum57/HTML/002414.html

If you combine diamond bumping with a 'local agreement' (sometimes called 'last room availability') at a hotel -- such as a hotel near an office where your company does a lot of business, etc. -- you can bump someone and get a good rate, the prenegoiated rate for your company.

I've only ever seen this happen at one location, but I did it a few times. I've guessed this is a quirk, and wouldn't expect to see very often.