Hilton HHonors - The REAL Prem Room problem - Charging More AFTER Booking

So well all know about the premium room scam:

- Offer prem rooms and ridiculous levels and call it an enhancement
- Reduce regular room inventory as can reach 5% award rooms quota via offering inflated prem rooms
- Get rid of the DSA, thus ensuring more dates without availability while advertising "no black out dates"

Then there was the prem room enhancement - where some members in few circumstances can find prem rewards for cheaper prices. Well, I scored a lucky strike with this and booked a 1 night at Hilton Dusseldorf (regularly 40K) for 23,636 pts for 1 night. Great, better than PB.

Well, just logged into my account and saw that it wasn't 23,636 that was deducted but 32,864 points. ...!!!???

Will be calling DD shortly. I advise you to all check your prem room bookings too. :td:

Well it gets more interesting. Call the DD. reason I was charged more points? Because I was "upgraded" I am therefore charged the prem award rate. ...? Is this a joke? DD says can't help me and transfer me to HH Customer Care. Talk to a "supervisor" who says "new policy" is that upgrades on awards only happen via points or cash. No more free upgrades.

I tell him check his website, he insists this is the policy.

I tell him that's BS and he says it's Hilton's new policy (apparently effective "past few months"). I ask to be x-ferred to higher up to which I am sent to a VM. Is this a joke?!

:mad:

FYI, hotel did upgrade me as they can per the VIP benefits. But no one said a thing about more points.

Well it gets more interesting. Call the DD. reason I was charged more points? Because I was "upgraded" I am therefore charged the prem award rate. ...? Is this a joke? DD says can't help me and transfer me to HH Customer Care. Talk to a "supervisor" who says "new policy" is that upgrades on awards only happen via points or cash. No more free upgrades.oh boy it just keeps getting better at Hilton.

I hope others will not say the same thing is happening to them and your experience is a perverse one off customer service burp.

Please let us know how if the vm you left gets a response.

Well it gets more interesting. Call the DD. reason I was charged more points? Because I was "upgraded" I am therefore charged the prem award rate. ...? Is this a joke? DD says can't help me and transfer me to HH Customer Care. Talk to a "supervisor" who says "new policy" is that upgrades on awards only happen via points or cash. No more free upgrades.

I tell him check his website, he insists this is the policy.

I tell him that's BS and he says it's Hilton's new policy (apparently effective "past few months"). I ask to be x-ferred to higher up to which I am sent to a VM. Is this a joke?!

:mad:

FYI, hotel did upgrade me as they can per the VIP benefits. But no one said a thing about more points.

I just booked a reward stay this morning and had no problem requesting a NOR1 complimentary upgrade for $0 as a Hilton Diamond.

I have already switched a decent chunk of my stays this year from Hilton to Starwood as a result of the devaluations in the program. If this truly is the new policy, I will switch ALL of my stays to other chains and cancel my Hilton HHonors cards.

HRCC told me today that 'Premium Rooms just gives you more choice' and 'as long as a standard room is available for sale, you can book it'

Is this actually true? She told me this is different for Golds as it is for Diamonds?

Well it gets more interesting. Call the DD. reason I was charged more points? Because I was "upgraded" I am therefore charged the prem award rate. ...? Is this a joke? DD says can't help me and transfer me to HH Customer Care. Talk to a "supervisor" who says "new policy" is that upgrades on awards only happen via points or cash. No more free upgrades.

I tell him check his website, he insists this is the policy.


Tell me that you are joking! That can't be true! :td:

Tell me that you are joking! That can't be true! :td:

Not joking. Left a VM with the sup's sup, will report back when this comes in.

I hope nobody else suffers this, hence wanted to warn the FT community,

I just duplicated your booking. It's cheaper now at 23.036 points.
Upgrade to Exec is offered at 9.679 points or a 30€ NOR1 (HH Gold).
I will report if they force the upgrade as well.
But, why don't you just cancel and rebook the award or book the 59€ rate.

This is for a stay that already happened right? Now when you check in, did you "ask" for an upgrade or did they give you the upgrade without you asking? I wonder if they mistaken your asking for an upgrade as you are willing to pay for the point difference?

I just duplicated your booking. It's cheaper now at 23.036 points.
Upgrade to Exec is offered at 9.679 points or a 30€ NOR1 (HH Gold).
I will report if they force the upgrade as well.
But, why don't you just cancel and rebook the award or book the 59€ rate.

Not sure you understand what happened.

1. Booked my award. Everything was fine, account was charged 23,363 as receipt indicated.
2. Upon arriving at the hotel, I was upgraded. At this point unbeknownst to me the 23,363 was returned and 36,894 was charged to my account when the room change occurred.
3. I discovered the change AFTER my stay. Coincidentally I only saw that 23,363 was charged and then reversed when looking at "HHonors Activity" and then "Redemption History". Under "All Activity" only the 36,894 is shown.

Hence I call this a scam. It occurred live, without my knowledge, and without my consent.

What got me the most mad is that the CSR said since it was policy, he could not refund me my points as I had consented to the "upgrade" by taking the better room.

What an insult. :td:

This is for a stay that already happened right? Now when you check in, did you "ask" for an upgrade or did they give you the upgrade without you asking? I wonder if they mistaken your asking for an upgrade as you are willing to pay for the point difference?

Maybe, it might have been the issue. But really? VIP members ask if they have been upgraded. FD clerks responds "yes we'll upgrade you."

No mention of incremental cost in points or $. Charge you on the back end? I think not.

Asking for UG's is a std practice of VIP's, we've been doing it for years since the VIP program came out.

something doesn't sound right about this scenario.

comp. upgrades upon availability at the time of arrival def. still exist.

something doesn't sound right about this scenario.

comp. upgrades upon availability at the time of arrival def. still exist.

That's my point, UG should and is complimentary. Not ala carte post fact NOR1...

Not sure you understand what happened.

1. Booked my award. Everything was fine, account was charged 23,363 as receipt indicated.
2. Upon arriving at the hotel, I was upgraded. At this point unbeknownst to me the 23,363 was returned and 36,894 was charged to my account when the room change occurred.
3. I discovered the change AFTER my stay. Coincidentally I only saw that 23,363 was charged and then reversed when looking at "HHonors Activity" and then "Redemption History". Under "All Activity" only the 36,894 is shown.

Hence I call this a scam. It occurred live, without my knowledge, and without my consent.

What got me the most mad is that the CSR said since it was policy, he could not refund me my points as I had consented to the "upgrade" by taking the better room.

What an insult. :td:

It sounds to me that the hotel erred - that you got a poorly trained front desk agent who completely botched this up.

And it sounds like you then encountered poorly trained HH CSRs - which is what I seem to always get when calling HH! (A recent experience: a CSR was adamant that I was wrong, and that they have no such policy called "No Blackout Dates").

Hopefully that vm msg you left will be returned, and this matter will be resolved. If it's not, what I would do is contact the hotel's GM directly, inform him/her of the FD's mistake, and request that the hotel post to your account the point balance. And I'd hope that the GM would offer you some amount of extra points as compensation for having such a poorly trained employee.

This story sounds similar to an SPG property thread (I can't remember which one now), regarding a revenue stay, but similar in that when the SPG Plat was upgraded, he was erroneously charged the rate for the new room.

Keep us posted, and good luck.

Maybe, it might have been the issue. But really? VIP members ask if they have been upgraded. FD clerks responds "yes we'll upgrade you."

No mention of incremental cost in points or $. Charge you on the back end? I think not.

Asking for UG's is a std practice of VIP's, we've been doing it for years since the VIP program came out.

Actually there were a few times when I asked if there is any room upgrade, the clerk would say, yes we do have a Deluxe blah blah blah room for an extra $xx per night. At that point, I would have to remember to say "Do you have any complementary room upgrade available?"

Seems like for this case, they just forgot to ask you if you are willing to pay. But if they really have a new policy that they don't have to ask you for approval, then it would be scary. You may think that you got lucky when you got an upgrade to a Presidential Suite.. that is until the next day you see you are missing 800,000 points!

Is it possible that after you made the booking (but before check-in), you used the NOR1 page and selected room upgrade for points?
If not, I suspect that the hotel thought you did, and when they processed your upgrade, they also deducted more points from your account.

It's only a "scam" if it's done with intent. Since we don't know this for sure, we have to give them the benefit of the doubt in that it could just be a monumental mess up from the hotel and/or Check-In agent.

I'd be very surprised if you didn't get this overturned.

Is it possible that after you made the booking (but before check-in), you used the NOR1 page and selected room upgrade for points?
If not, I suspect that the hotel thought you did, and when they processed your upgrade, they also deducted more points from your account.

NOR1 upgrades are only paid standby upgrade requests, whereas the point upgrades are done through a separate site. I'd be VERY surprised if OP accidentally went there and unknowingly upgraded the room with points.

Is it possible that after you made the booking (but before check-in), you used the NOR1 page and selected room upgrade for points?
If not, I suspect that the hotel thought you did, and when they processed your upgrade, they also deducted more points from your account.

I did not select anything via NOR1, this hotel isn't on NOR1 AFAIK. My guess is that I did get a bad agent and FDC who might have screwed this up.

To be honest I don't think I have to disclose that I want a comp UG, but probably a good idea in the future.

Will keep you all posted. So far no response.

To be honest I don't think I have to disclose that I want a comp UG, but probably a good idea in the future.

There is NO WAY that it should be your responsibility to disclose that you want a complimentary upgrade. It is the agent's responsibility to tell you that an upgraded room would cost more. Customer service at its most basic.

Hope everything is resolved!

This thread caught my eye yesterday. To my surprise, something similar just happened to me.

Online check in for stay tomorrow in Hawaii.
Room selected Deluxe ocean- non exec. No big deal great
Room rate shown on line $90 more than my confirmed rate! What's up?
Call hotel. Thank them for ocean view. Ask if executive is available- yes
Policy is to upgrade 1 room category. Ok. But with the new rate of $ 90 that is the executive room rate per the website(checked while on the phone).
Explain that my confirmed rate is not the rate shown. "sorry I can't change that". State that someone changed my confirmed rate without my permission or consulting me.
Transferred to manager.
Rate corrected.
Room now on executive floor.

No Nor 1 selected.

All taken care of and appreciate the correction, but why did that happen?
Double check your rates!

Given historical experience, I would file this under "yet another Hilton IT fail" rather than "intentional scam and cover-up". I do have to say folks here are very quick to reach for the S-word rather than apply Hanlon's Razor.

Not sure you understand what happened.

1. Booked my award. Everything was fine, account was charged 23,363 as receipt indicated.
2. Upon arriving at the hotel, I was upgraded. At this point unbeknownst to me the 23,363 was returned and 36,894 was charged to my account when the room change occurred.
3. I discovered the change AFTER my stay. Coincidentally I only saw that 23,363 was charged and then reversed when looking at "HHonors Activity" and then "Redemption History". Under "All Activity" only the 36,894 is shown.

Hence I call this a scam. It occurred live, without my knowledge, and without my consent.

What got me the most mad is that the CSR said since it was policy, he could not refund me my points as I had consented to the "upgrade" by taking the better room.

What an insult. :td:

Wow, this is a real PITA. The fact that HHONORS CSR cannot or would not fix the problem (BS policy) is the bigger issue.

Wow, this is a real PITA. The fact that HHONORS CSR cannot or would not fix the problem (BS policy) is the bigger issue.

It can and likely will be corrected once confirmed what the actual scenario was. I agree with the poster above, I can't believe it's an actual scam that exist. They must have records of who and when the reservation was changed.

hope it gets confirmed and corrected for you soon. ;)

Wow, this is a real PITA. The fact that HHONORS CSR cannot or would not fix the problem (BS policy) is the bigger issue.

+1. Agree 100%. Even if it was an IT glitch or hotel FDC error, I would have thought that HH CSR would have helped out instead of quoting some bogus policy and being unhelpful. Not only is that the bigger issue, but bigger annoyance too.

looking forward to the resolution of this.

+1. Agree 100%. Even if it was an IT glitch or hotel FDC error, I would have thought that HH CSR would have helped out instead of quoting some bogus policy and being unhelpful. Not only is that the bigger issue, but bigger annoyance too.

YMMV but in six years as a Diamond member I've never had a satisfactory interaction with HH CS (excluding the Rewards folks, who are invariably cheerful and efficient), not by e-mail, not by phone. It strikes me every time I have to follow up on a missing miles claim that the staff at HH is poorly, indeed perfunctorily, trained and probably poorly paid.

I just finished 3 reward stays at Trafalgar, Budapest and Prague; in all 3 instances we were upgraded and no additional points charged. At Trafalgar I had to get the rooms manager involved as the front desk would only give us a Double instead of a King (they were very full); the other 2 hotels upgraded us before arriving. Like redfox Budapest was at a discounted rate of 22.5k.

YMMV but in six years as a Diamond member I've never had a satisfactory interaction with HH CS (excluding the Rewards folks, who are invariably cheerful and efficient), not by e-mail, not by phone. It strikes me every time I have to follow up on a missing miles claim that the staff at HH is poorly, indeed perfunctorily, trained and probably poorly paid.

Well, I remember it was 1-2 years ago when the HH DD would handle all issues. Not it seems like they only handle reservation type issues and pass it on to corporate folks who like you say, are poorly trained and don't care a rats rear about any loyal or HVC.

It's frustrating to call into the DD line, get transferred, sit on hold for 20-30 min, to get sub standard service.

"IT Glitch"... hmmm where have I heard that before? :p

BTW, I just saw an HHonors ad in a magazine. One of their new membership benefit is listed as room upgrade reward using points at the front desk. OP may be one of the lucky member that got to use this new benefit without being informed by the front desk clerk.

The other 2 new benefits were premium room reward and cash and point reward.

Ok, got resolution here:

Hotel itself emailed me back apologizing for the error, explaining that it was an error by the FDC (as many guessed correctly here). They will be refunding me the difference in points. ^

I have been more than impressed with this hotel (Hilton Dusseldorf). My stay was outstanding and staff amazing. I wrote my positive comments to the FDM and asked him to pass it along to the GM. ^

Of more concern is:
1. Incorrect info from Hilton Guest Assistance. I wrote the CSR back and again reiterated my position. We'll see if he responds.
2. Lack of return call from the Hilton Guest Assistance Manager (apparently manages the "supervisor" I spoke to in #1). This is appalling that I have not received any call back yet.

I plan on writing to diamond@hilton.com to explain the whole issue, express my extreme displeasure with 1/2 above and how that makes me feel unvalued as a customer, and at the same time give praise to Hilton DUS for their great CS, solution in resolving this issue, and for being a great property.

Stay posted.

Thanks for the update. Now that you've verified that it's not a scam, you might want to ask a moderator to change the thread title to something more appropriate (to alert people to be aware of this "option" at checkin).

Ok, full follow-up. Got a call back from HH and the supervisor apologized for the error the agent made in incorrectly telling me that I was both wrong and that there was no more complimentary UG's. She offered me 5K points for my inconvenience.

^ to the hotel for being great start to finish. And although I was really annoyed at HH and their lack of training, I will say ^ to the sup that handled this case.

Great news! This incident initally had me worried that HHonors was re-writing the rules on the fly. I'm very pleased that it was settled in a satisfactory manner.

Can you please edit (or ask a mod to edit) the topic to remove the word "scam", as it is now evident that there is in fact no scam, merely badly-trained or incompetent staff or bad IT at fault?

Lucky you. I copied/pasted my post here

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/19053201-post5.html

to diamond@hilton.com and didn't even get a response, much less an adjustment.

Am thinking it really may be time to switch to Priceline after the year is up.

Can you please edit (or ask a mod to edit) the topic to remove the word "scam", as it is now evident that there is in fact no scam, merely badly-trained or incompetent staff or bad IT at fault?

Good suggestion. Request to mod sent.