Hilton HHonors - MIT/Harvard Properties

I will be in Cambridge, MA in August and would like to stay near MIT or Harvard. Which if the properties should I go for? Back Bay Hilton is already sold out. I have HH Gold. Thanks!

There are three properties affiliated with Doubletree:

CC - Hotel @ MIT (http://www.doubletree.com/en/dt/hotels/index.jhtml?ctyhocn=BOSSGDT)

Harvard Square Hotel (http://www.doubletree.com/en/dt/hotels/index.jhtml?ctyhocn=BOSEMDT)

The Inn at Harvard (http://www.doubletree.com/en/dt/hotels/index.jhtml?ctyhocn=BOSMQDT)

Thanks for the quick reply, Eugene. Which hotel would you choose of the 3? I'm leaning toward the Inn at Harvard.

I haven't stayed at either one, so perhaps someone else with first-hand personal experience could advise you. I just saw these properties in a recent Doubletree directory, and made a mental note to myself to try some of these places next time I'm in Boston area. They all look like a nice alternative to a typical cookie-cutter business hotel.

There's also the Doubletree Guest Suites, which is across the river from Harvard--maybe a 15-20 minute walk from Harvard Square. I stayed there for Harvard graduation weekend last year and found the service during a very busy weekend to be excellent. I recommend the river view.

A friend who stayed at the Inn at Harvard Square had a good experience, but I believe he commented that the rooms were small. Can't beat the location near the Kennedy School, though.

I like the free T1 access and the restaurant at the University Park hotel. Rooms are modernish with vessel sinks in the bathroom. Water pressure is average. Central Square is a nice working class neighborhood.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by lensman:
...Central Square is a nice working class neighborhood.</font>

And most importantly, home to the world's best ice cream.

Toscanini's (http://www.tosci.com/)

The Harvard Square Hotel is quite disappointing. Convenient location but rooms are cramped and very motel-like. It feels like a Motel 6 dropped into the city. The affiliation w/Doubletree doesn't include the usual Doubletree amenity of cookies. Unclear if there are any upgraded rooms and no breakfast as an HH Gold.

It's easy to get confused with these properties, and a fe people have done an excellent job of it (getting confused, that is).

The Harvard Square Hotel is next to the Kennedy School and the Charles Hotel, almost in the center of Harvard Square. The location is exceptional, but the property itself is dumpy. It's an old motel, and it in fact sits next to an alley where buses sit with their engines idling. I'd avoid the place if possible.

The Inn at Harvard Square is really nowhere near the Kennedy School but is just a block from Harvard Yard (near Quincy St. and Mass Ave). It's a particularly pleasant place, with a nice atrium--an oasis of quiet in the happy cuckooness of Harvard Square.

The DoubleTree Guest Suites, which is in Allston (just across the river from Cambridge), has the worst location of any non-fleabag hotel in Boston. It sits nestled between a railroad yard and two highways (Storrow Drive & the Mass Pike), and there is nothing within a short walk of the hotel. Once you get across the always-busy intersection in front of the hotel, you do get to the river and have a 15- or 20-minute walk to Harvard Square, but the hotel is basically useful only to drive somewhere else. And if you want to drive somewhere else, what's the point of staying in a city??

Sorry, no info on CC - Hotel @ MIT.

Funny, I love the Doubletree Guest Suites. The rates much of the year (not at MIT graduation, though) are in the $119-$139 range, the rooms are large 2-room suites, and they take care of Diamonds (and those travelling with Diamonds) very well. It's about a $7 cab ride to the Central Square T station, or about a $15 cab ride to the Prudential Center. Since the rooms are almost always $22-$30 cheaper than the other Hilton/Doubletree properties, I like to stay there for the extra space.

The University Park @ MIT is nice as well, but usually beyond my budget unless I get it via Priceline. The location is better, the rooms are smaller but better furnished, and there is a grocery store on site. If you are in after 5pm and out before 8am, you can get $8 parking. If you need to head out of the city for the day, there is a Budget rental car location about two blocks away.

The Suites and the Inn at Harvard are the only hotels there that accept or recognize HH points / status. The hotels in Cambridge are all owned by MIT or Harvard, and they use Hilton as manager. The universities recognize that they alone are enough of a draw to fill the rooms, so they have very limited contracts with Hilton, that usually do not include HHonors.

Inn at Harvard is in a great location for Harvard Square, and it's a very pleasant Hotel. Corporate recruiters love that hotel.

The University Park hotel at MIT is probably the most interesting -- imagine a W hotel designed by MIT students. Not in the best neighborhood though, and it's not convenient to any transportation.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by gsilliman:
The Suites and the Inn at Harvard are the only hotels there that accept or recognize HH points / status. The hotels in Cambridge are all owned by MIT or Harvard, and they use Hilton as manager. The universities recognize that they alone are enough of a draw to fill the rooms, so they have very limited contracts with Hilton, that usually do not include HHonors. </font>

I'm not sure what you mean by "usually do not include HHonors". A lot of HH hotels are franchised and still participate in the program. Do you know for a fact that these two properties (CC - Hotel @ MIT and the Harvard Square Hotel) officially don't participate in the HHonors program, or they are just "non-compliant"? Typically, properties that can be booked through HH-brands web sites (e.g., Doubletree) do participate in the program, although some do so reluctantly. If you (or anyone else for that matter) have first-hand knowledge, could you shed more light on this, please?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Eugene:
I'm not sure what you mean by "usually do not include HHonors". A lot of HH hotels are franchised and still participate in the program. Do you know for a fact that these two properties (CC - Hotel @ MIT and the Harvard Square Hotel) officially don't participate in the HHonors program, or they are just "non-compliant"? Typically, properties that can be booked through HH-brands web sites (e.g., Doubletree) do participate in the program, although some do so reluctantly. If you (or anyone else for that matter) have first-hand knowledge, could you shed more light on this, please? </font>

Back during the AA 20/20 promo, I stayed at CC - Hotel @ MIT, having booked it through the Hilton Web Site. It was called a Doubletree on my reservation, but nowhere in the hotel. In fact, I had to ask a couple of times if I was in the right place. I was told firmly "We are not part of Hhonors" when I registered and presented my hhonors gold card. "You can just book a room through the Hilton Web Site." In the room, there was an advertisement for Hhonors.

This was also during a 50K for 4 stays promo. When I got back, I complained to flyertalk@hhonors.com, or whatever that email was. I got the points, and credit for the 50K, but no miles, breakfast, stay credits, or real explanation.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by sosafan:
I got the points, and credit for the 50K, but no miles, breakfast, stay credits, or real explanation.</font>

If you didn't get a stay credit, how did it count for the 50K then???

And getting no real explanation from HH on this is the worst, IMHO.

But, if you go to the HH official list of Category 4 properties (http://www.doubletree.com/en/hhonors/rewards/category.jhtml?hhonorsRewardLevel=4), then click on Massachusets, you'll see that CC - Hotel @ MIT is listed there! How can they claim then their non-participation in HHonors???

The University Park started giving HHonors points/stay credits sometime last year after enough of us *****ed and moaned. Last time I stayed there was on a Priceline rate ($45 for a late April weeknight!!). I gave them my HHonors number and got the stay credit.

As to not having any transportation nearby, it's about a 5-minute walk to the Central Square T stop.

I do know for a fact that they do not participate in HH, but the situation is murky enough -- especially on Hilton's own web site -- that HH credit or some limited status recognition can sometimes be obtained, but this is not consistent, and is obtained only through an exception granted by some sympathetic individual hotel or HH employee handling the complaint. These hotels are not non-compliant, they simply do not have HH compliance included in their contracts with Doubletrtee, and they had enough clout to make these conditions stick.

I do not believe they are technically franchises of Hilton/Doubletree -- they do not use the hotel brands in their names -- rather, they have granted Doubletree a management contract. At one time, Doubletree made a specialty out of managing university-affiliated conference centers, and these hotel affiliations may be a vestige of that business.

One source of confusion regarding these hotels stems from the HH hotel search on the HH web site. Pull up any of these hotels, and there will be an HHonors logo with tag line and hyperlinks in the bottom right corner, and often another HHonors link in the "current features" section of the screen -- this is the Hilton "home page" for the hotel, and it sure seems to be linked to HHonors. However, under the "our Hotel" contents bar, there is no HHonors link -- different from almost every other hotel on the website. For the MIT and the Harvard Square hotels, you simply cannot pull up any hotel-specific HH ranking or other HH information from their home pages. Once upon a time, the MIT hotel did have that HHonors link, and it said something like "This hotel particpates as a level hotel" {i.e. blank}

I have learned this information over many visits, each time asking a question or two at the desk or of managers slightly differently -- and one occasion when I spent way too much time on the phone with HHonors trying to get breakfast coupons while staying at Harvard Square. My overall impression was -- the hotel staffs knew they were affiliated with Hilton, but knew nothing about HHonors; HHonors employees knew that these hotels were part of their network, but had no clue as to why they would not be participating in HHonors.

gsilliman -- Thanks a lot for your detailed response!

I think this case is way beyond merely confusing, but rather very misleading.

Ownership of the property is immaterial here. If any property chooses not to participate in the program (and gets that affirmed in their franchise agreement), this information must be clearly communicated to the membership (that's what SPG does in their Terms and Conditions - spells out names of properties that are affiliated with Starwood brands but not participate in the program).

I have 13 stays and 43 nights at Hotel@MIT this year so far. Got HH stay and night credit every time except for my hotels.com stay as well as 10 HH points per dollar of my folio including charges at the hotel restaurant.

No Doubletree cookies. I don't think they have a Towers or Executive Level floor, but they do put me on the top floor every time and give me a free continental breakfast coupon for each day of my stay.

Is my experience unusual? I just made Gold, so I don't have a lot of evidence of being upgraded or not being upgraded to a suite.

I'm staying at the Inn at Harvard for the first time as they had a ridiculously low $95 weekday rate. I cannot say I am impressed. The rooms are very, very small, with a desk that's way too narrow to be really usable. There is no broadband or wireless access in the room, and only pay-by-the-day internet in the lobby. I went back and complained about my room and asked for an upgrade as a Diamond, and was told that all the rooms are the same except for two junior suites that were occupied. No breakfast coupons were included in my package, but the breakfast layout was all-carb so I wasn't going to eat it anyway, but it's still disappointing.

It would be very difficult for me to recommend this property to anybody unless there was a serious price differential (this week it was $56, so that's why I took it). I can only imagine what the Harvard Square Hotel looks like by the comments I've heard.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ElmhurstNick:
It would be very difficult for me to recommend this property to anybody unless there was a serious price differential (this week it was $56, so that's why I took it). I can only imagine what the Harvard Square Hotel looks like by the comments I've heard.</font>

did you at least get a stay credit and points for the night? i'm planning to stay at the Inn at Harvard in January. won't be expecting any benefits as a Gold, but i'd at least want a stay credit for the ACAQ bonus.

I stayed at the Inn at Harvard and I agree the rooms are very small but I found the staff very helpful.

I also did not get an upgrade as an HHonors Gold member but they did allow me to check in at 8:00 AM which would have been better than the upgrade even if they did offer it.

When the stay posted it said something like Folio Charge $288.00 and then points 0. So I e-mailed flyertalk@hilton.com and they gave me full credit including the promo bonuses.

thanks for sharing JY4D!

I just completed a stay at the Inn at Harvard. On checkin, the front desk clerk said that they had limited partcipation in HHonors and only gave points but not breakfast or upgrades. I phoned the Diamond line but it was after Guest Services was closed so they said they'd email me today - no response yet. They also suggested that I phone the manager.

I phoned the manager and said I had a question about Hilton HHonors benefits. He said: "We're leaving the HHonors program, but you're in room XYZ? I'll give you a breakfast coupon." It was kinda strange - did HHonors message them? I thought Guest Services was closed. Maybe the front desk clerk told the manager about this or maybe they only then noticed that I was Diamond.

At any rate, I didn't get a chance to find out more because I left for dinner before the manager got to my room. My breakfast coupon was under my door when I returned.

I was running a bit late and after the previous night's incidents didn't feel particularly welcome at the hotel so I skipped the free breakfast anyway.

The bed did have nice sheets and they did have wireless high speed for $10 a night. I risked it and used an insecure free access point that happened to be available, though.

I'll probably not return to the hotel unless I have to. They like me much better at the Hotel@MIT - sold out the night I needed, though.