Hilton HHonors - You can CHANGE a Reward Reservation Online ... without the Hack!

I think we're getting closer to Online Reward Reservations, because last night I found that you can now change a Reward Reservation booked over the telephone to a different date.

Login to HHonors.com, and pull your reservation up by clicking on the reservation number in "My Travel Planner". Select "change dates" and you can do it.

In this case, I had a Point Stretcher booked on the first day of a published available PS date range. When I selected a later date, that I knew had PS availability, the change was accepted.

When I tried to change the date (just experimenting) to an earlier date when I knew PS was not valid, it didn't handle it very gracefully, giving me an error in large, bold, red letters, saying I had to call the internet help desk. That's too bad, because you'd really need to call the redemption desk, but I guess they're still working out the kinks.

Also of note, especially for the hack (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum57/HTML/006173.html), is that the Change Reservation page now exposes the booking code in the Summary column on the right side of the page. In this case, a Doubletree Point Stretcher reward, the booking code was SDTSTR.

Unfortunately, I was unable to get this code to work with the hack (substituting it where the HH is) to book a new reservation. But that doesn't mean it won't work in any of a number of other possibilities. There are probably Standard and Point Stretcher codes for each brand, so we can experiment by making phone reservations then testing the rate code on new online reservations.

[This message has been edited by Rut Dog (edited 07-29-2003).]

bump...

I'm a little surprised this hasn't gotten any comments.

Especially from people hunting down rate codes that might be used with the hack. If people post or e-mail me the rate codes from their existing reservation, I'll test them and post results in the following format.


Award
Brand Type Code Hacks?
H Std HH Y
H PS ?? ?
DT Std SDTRDM N
DT PS SDTSTR N
ES Std ?? ?
ES PS ?? ?
HGI Std ?? ?
HGI PS ?? ?
HI Std ?? ?
HI PS ?? ?
C Std ?? ?
C PS ?? ?
S Std ?? ?
S PS ?? ?


[This message has been edited by Rut Dog (edited 07-30-2003).]

Edited to add DT/PS.

[This message has been edited by Rut Dog (edited 09-06-2003).]

I was able to do this for a reservation at the Melbourne Hilton in January. I had initially booked (I think) a two night weekend. I went in to the reservation as you describe and changed it to a three night midweek. I had no problem at check-in and my three night redemption cert was accepted.

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Gaza's oneworld & Star Alliance Round the World Information Pages (http://www.rtw-info.co.uk) - www.rtw-info.co.uk (http://www.rtw-info.co.uk)

The ability to drill down into individual reservations is relatively new on the 'travel planner' page. It was desperately needed, too!

So, with that improvement came the ability to see and modify ANY reservation for which you have a confirmation number. Most booked with your HH# should show up there, too.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by PHL:
The ability to drill down into individual reservations is relatively new on the 'travel planner' page. It was desperately needed, too!
</font>
Indeed. I always thought it was ludicrous that you could click on the hotel name but not the reservation number! I mean, how lame was that? Glad they finally made the enhancement.


Kathy

Rutdog, i tried something random on a whim... and maybe it works as a Doubletree standard award code?

instead of HH, put DT

how can we tell if it actually works or not?

um... never mind. i don't think it works.
it keeps giving the error "Please note that the HHonors Redemption rate you requested was not available."

[This message has been edited by dberry (edited 08-11-2003).]

I tested it with my res. at the Hilton on the Park Melbourne, Oz: It allowed me to change to a stay including Jan. 17, which was SOLD OUT when I called HHonors.

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Play the travel game 3 vacations into the future!

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Brendan:
I tested it with my res. at the Hilton on the Park Melbourne, Oz: It allowed me to change to a stay including Jan. 17, which was SOLD OUT when I called HHonors.</font>Now that's a serious improvement. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

There seems to have been a giant step backwards in this area.

The latest "enhancement" is that when you click on the reservation number of a reward reservation, it just brings up.... a blank page.

Very recent development. When I asked HHonors about this on the phone, they said that customers had complained about seeing (non-zero) room rates on award reservations. It was confusing. So the "solution" was the blank page. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif


Kathy

Kathy, I do not get a blank page. I get the same page I've always seen, and the same functionality.

However...

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Rut Dog:
Also of note, especially for the hack (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum57/HTML/006173.html), is that the Change Reservation page now exposes the booking code in the Summary column on the right side of the page. In this case, a Doubletree Point Stretcher reward, the booking code was SDTSTR.</font>

... the code is no longer exposed. (They're watching us! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/tongue.gif)

That doesn't mean you can't get at it, though. It takes a little work, but it is pretty simple.


[This message has been edited by Rut Dog (edited 09-06-2003).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Rut Dog:
Kathy, I do not get a blank page. I get the same page I've always seen, and the same functionality.

However...

... the code is no longer exposed. (They're watching us! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/tongue.gif)

That doesn't mean you can't get at it, though. It takes a little work, but it is pretty simple.


[This message has been edited by Rut Dog (edited 09-06-2003).]</font>
I don't think you understood my post.

What I meant was that award reservations made (through normal channels, i.e., phone) after a certain date are showing a blank page, intentionally. My award reservation made earlier is NOT showing a blank page. Only the one that was made toward the end of August.

Is that any clearer?

And I don't see the relevance of "the code is no longer exposed." All my award reservations have been made by phone, NOT online. However, until the most recent one, I WAS able to view them online.


Kathy

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by KathyWdrf:
What I meant was that award reservations made (through normal channels, i.e., phone) after a certain date are showing a blank page, intentionally. My award reservation made earlier is NOT showing a blank page. Only the one that was made toward the end of August.

Is that any clearer?</font>

Much clearer.

You prompted me to get on the phone and make a new reward reservation that I'd been putting off anyway. Then I went on the web and looked it up. I did not get any blank pages, and still got all the stuff I'd seen before.

This was a Doubletree reservation.

I doubt the blank page is an "enhancement". I doubt the CSR knew what s/he was talking about. More likely it was/is is a bug, limited in scope to a certain brand perhaps.


<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by KathyWdrf:
And I don't see the relevance of "the code is no longer exposed." All my award reservations have been made by phone, NOT online. However, until the most recent one, I WAS able to view them online.</font>

The point was to continue the discussion I started above, about being able to collect codes from phone reservations by calling them up online. See my comments above.

And in regard to those comments, the rate code for Doubletree Standard redemption is SDTRDM, but it, too, is not hackable. :(

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">I doubt the blank page is an "enhancement". I doubt the CSR knew what s/he was talking about. More likely it was/is is a bug, limited in scope to a certain brand perhaps.</font>
Well, it was a Diamond desk rep I was talking to. Perhaps they indeed didn't know what they were talking about, but.... let's see if anyone else encounters the blank page on award reservations. Then it will become clearer whether it's an isolated instance or not, and what situations it occurs in.

FWIW, it's an award res at the Osaka Hilton. But my award res at the Tokyo Hilton (made earlier) shows up fine.

Of course, it's also possible that the blank page was a temporary "cure" that turned out to be worse than the original "disease" and hence was reversed after enough people complained!


Kathy