Hilton HHonors - Advice to Diamond on How to Handle "No Point Structure Available"

Hello All,

I am a Diamond trying to book a 3 day reward stay at the San Diego Resort labor day weekend. (Using either PP3 or SP5)

Unfortunately upon calling the Diamond Desk this morning I was told that this Property (and the Lajolla Hilton as well) do not have ANY reward Point Structures in the System.

The Diamond Desk rep mentioned that the San Diego resort has not had ANY point structures (awards of any type) in the system for the last 3 months.

Any advice on how to handle this?

Who can I write to in Diamond Services to see if they can override the system and get us into the property for the 3 days. (I know this is not the worlds greatest Hilton property, but it has a great location for Sea World etc for my kids)

Also, is this becoming normal for Hilton properties that are in the Premium category, to not have rewards at any time and to not lift blackouts and or override lack of rewards for Diamonds?

Thanks

Capetown

[This message has been edited by capetown (edited 08-19-2002).]

Guess What,

I called the hotel directly and after being transferred to a couple of associates, got a person who went out of his way to check availability for me.

He was able to reserve a room for me and then transferred me to the redemption desk (not the Diamond Desk) and we booked the stay.

So the lesson learned here is DO NOT call the Diamond desk to check reward availability. For some reason or another, the Diamond desk database is not synched up with the redemption desk database.

I wonder how many other Diamonds missed out on Reward stays relying on the poor data that the Diamond Desk has available?

[This message has been edited by capetown (edited 08-19-2002).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by capetown:
I wonder how many other Diamonds missed out on Reward stays relying on the poor data that the Diamond Desk has available?
</font>

Based on past posts, I think your experience was an exception, and not the norm. The Diamond Desk usually provides excellent service. In fact, if they have not had data for the last 3 months I'd say the problem might be with the hotel in that they have not been entering their info into the system. Although, the Diamond Desk probably could have called the hotel directly, like you did.

The Diamond Desk can be a joke at times. It depends on who answers the phone. Here's one example from last week.

I called needing to cancel one reservation in Indiana and make one in Ohio. It was 5:30 Indiana time. The desk told me that it was after 6 so I would have to pay for the room. I told him it was actually 5:30 there where the reservation was. He told me I needed to call myself and cancel because his computer would not let him cancel the reservation, then for me to call back and he would make a reservation at the Ohio property. I will stay at your properties about 150 times this year clown. I should have said: "Get off your lazy butt and call for me. I'm in a car in traffic and not ready to pull over and start looking up numbers." But, I am too nice and said thank you and did what I was told.

Nice help.