Hilton HHonors - Advice Wanted - Issue at hotel

Nothing serious, but I'd like to get opinions from those in this forum. This relates to the Millenium Hilton in NYC.

My husband has been working strike converage, 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for almost a month :eek: :eek: :eek: To try to make it a bit easier for him, he's stayed in the city for each Friday night. The first two went fine. He's arriving at the hotels after 7:30pm and leaving by 6:30am.

His reservations all note late arrivals and quiet rooms, and in the case of the Millenium, he requested a room on the quiet side of the hotel when he realized half the rooms faced the WTC construction.

Last week he was given a room facing the construction. The lights kept his room lit all night long even with the blinds/curatins closed, and the noise, clanging, and bells ringing kept him up all night. He should have just come home. :(

I went back to look, and nowhere on the website did it note that C&P rooms would face the construction. I looked more closely, and there is no notice on any type of room that they might face the construction.

I wrote HH customer service Monday morning, explaining all the above, and asked for both my points and money back. It was a shorter note that this post :)

Was my request unreasonable? Their canned response said I would hear back in 24-48 hours. Well, that time has passed. Are there any next steps I should take or just sit tight?

Maybe Hilton would throw you a bone as a CS gesture if you don't have a history of complaints, but Hilton owes you zippo.

If quiet is an issue for your husband, staying at a hotel next to one of the largest worksites in the country is not a good idea. This has been an ongoing issue for the better part of 10 years and will be more at least the next 5 years.

I suspect that Hilton does try to honor room requests and I tend to have good luck with them, but as you can imagine, if 1/2 the rooms face the construction, 1/2 are not "quiet."

I too look for quiet rooms and wouldn't even think of anything in the WTC area for that reason.

Thanks. Quiet wasn't as much an issue as the lighting of the room. If the lights weren't keeping him awake, he probably could have slept through the bulk of the noise.

They honored the request a week earlier, and I suspect because he checked in late, all the quiet rooms had been given out.

However, I know that at all Hyatts, when a hotel has any outside issues, or the rooms/pool/whatever are under construction, there are notifications, in red, at the top of the hotel information page as well as the reservations page. I would expect the same from any chain.

Honestly, I don't go down to the WTC ever, and didn't even know half the hotel faced the construction. He selected it because it was 1 subway stop away. He really only told me about the rooms facing the site after he stayed there the first time 2 weeks ago (he stayed at a HI the first week).

FWIW - we've never complained to Hilton about anything.

Thank you!

we have stayed there several times and they are well aware of the construction. Rooms facing the constructions have earplugs, eyeshades and you can request a white noise machine.

I agree with others, it's not a place to book if you need quiet. We take our chances because we like the area and the hotel and are batting 50% on quiet rooms.

I think it's inappropriate to ask for your points and money back - if the room was bright when he checked in, did he ask for another room? But maybe a few points for the inconvenience.

Thanks. Chances are, he didn't see that stuff. He's essentially exhausted.

In any event, he did ask at the front desk and was told that was all they had, but the clerk wasn't all that interested either.

FWIW - he has his own white noise and I'm sure he had it on.

But that's not the issue - the issue is that they don't warn people about it when making the reservation.

Since the first stay went ok, and he was in a quiet room, we didn't think it would be an issue a second time.

I'm not expecting anything/much. Which is probably why I haven't heard back :)

But thanks for the opinions. FWIW - tomorrow's reservation has been cancelled.

The warnings on the website use to take up as much space as the actual content. For whatever reason they took them down. I think it was right around the time the neighbors were having news crews down saying the noise and the rest were going way past the permit hours or whatever.

I don't feel you were wrong in asking for a refund. You mention points, and I know that the Millenium, at least for me, has always given me horrible rooms when I was redeeming points, and excellent rooms when paying for it (even if it was the cheap rate). They even apologized once saying they could not offer the usual suite on points.

I love that hotel, but unless you can sleep through the noise and the lights, it's a gamble which side you end up on when they are busy.

Thanks. It was a C&P rate, which wasn't all that much less than the cheapest rate. I only booked it because I've been sitting on those points for years :)

So they did have a warning. If I had seen one, I would have booked elsewhere, even if he had to take a cab.

In any event, I'm really not expecting anything/much. I'll post back if I do hear something.

We finally heard back. Here is the text of the resonse, which came directly from the hotel:

Good morning, I hope this email finds you well. I am writing to you in regards to your guest assistance inquiry. I would like to express my sincere apologies that Mr. ***** stay was not satisfactory due to the construction noise at the hotel. Unfortunately we are unable to control the amount of noise that does come from the World Trade center site. In an attempt to assist Mr. ****** get a better night’s sleep we did upgrade him to a King City view room complimentary on the 48thfloor upon his arrival to the hotel. I regret to inform you that I am unable to issue a full refund for the stay as we did attempt to keep him away from the noise providing him with an upgraded room away from the street and construction site as far as possible. Please feel free to contact me should you have any further questions or concerns.

My husband's response to that? "you can inform Mr. XXXXX, that if i jumped out the window, i would have landed in one of the reflection pools"

I really wasn't expecting anything at all, and well, that's what I got :)

Thanks for all your advice.