Hilton HHonors - Where's the love???

Below is a copy of the e-mail I sent to hhonors two weeks ago, and still no response:mad: I feel as if Hilton no longer cares about their most valuable customers. I'm on the road next week and have booked all three nights at Marriott properties.


Hi,

My name is XXX and I am a Diamond member with Hilton. I’ve been extremely loyal to the Hilton family of hotels over the last 8 years and have consistently held gold or diamond status. I feel inclined to voice my displeasure about an incident which happened last weekend at an Embassy Suites in Portland, ME. I had booked the hotel for one night, Saturday, August 16th, and called the hotel Saturday evening, informing them that I would be arriving well after midnight. The gentleman at the desk thanked me for the call and assured that the late arrival would not be an issue.

Upon arriving at the hotel around 1:30 in the morning the gentleman working the front desk notified me that they had over booked the hotel and did not have a room for me. I asked to speak with a manager and the gentleman informed me that the manager was gone for the night. I informed the front desk worker that I had called the hotel ahead of time and notified them I would be arriving quite. The gentleman apologized and informed me that the hotel had been recently purchased and the new owners had a policy of overbooking. I was then informed that all area hotels did not have vacancy and the only rooms available were at a motel on the outskirts of town. Embassy Suites reimbursed me for the motel ($130) and my wife and I left. We arrived at the recommended motel and to know surprise the lobby was filthy and the rooms were worse. We let the motel manager know we would not be spending the night and drove another hour north prior to finding an available, clean, hotel. My wife and I finally laid our heads down at 4 a.m.

Due to the above experience as well as the lack of valuable promotions over the past two years I am seriously reconsidering my loyalty to the Hilton family.

Did you guarantee your room with a credit card? If so, you should have had a room saved for you because you would have been charged as a no-show. No excuse for them not holding your room.
If they had sold your room to someone else, with a CC guarantee and as a Diamond member, if any room was available, you should have been given that room, even if it was the best suite in the hotel.


If you did not guarantee your room with a credit card, you have no recourse. Calling ahead means nothing in this case. Without a credit card guarantee, if you do not show up by a certain time, they are within their rights to sell the room to someone else and deny you a room when you arrived. But they should have informed you of this.

Don't they always ask for a credit card to guarantee the room at the time of the booking anyway?

I would boycott the hotel but I wouldn't abandon the entire Hilton chain. Stuff happens when traveling. Are you looking for an apology or some points?

Write a bad review on Tripadvisor and maybe you will feel better.

Hilton just doesn't seem to be trying to attract new customers like other hotel chains are doing. Hyatt has stay two, get one free, Priority Club almost always has a lot of good promotions (including 5k a night stays). I just got a Hyatt Diamond match, and will be moving stays there, as well to PC properties. I'm sure I'll stay at Hilton properties, but not with the almost 100% loyalty I've done until recently.

I would take a few different courses of action... one is to email the above to diamond@hhonors.com and flyertalk@hhonors.com . The other is to call HHonors customer service and calmly state what happened and see what they say... if it's not satisfactory, ask for a supervisor... if that's not satisfactory, ask to speek with their senior manager or director... if they won't forward your call, start writing letters all the way up the customer service ladder. Also, have in mind what your expectations are. If you're expecting an apology and it's worth your time, go for it. If you're expecting some points and it's worth your time, go for it. If it's not worth your time, drop it and move along.

Thanks IsleofMan. I forwarded the e-mail to the diamond desk. Yes, I'd be happy with hilton at least acknowledging the mistake. For those wondering the hotel was guaranteed with a CC.

That really is a horrible policy ... and reminiscent of the famous Doubletree incident (http://www.snopes.com/business/consumer/badhotel.asp).

I'm not a huge Marriott fan, but I still remember booking a room with points at the Marriott by the Atlanta airport. My plan was to arrive from Mexico with the Mrs in the evening, stay near the airport, then hop a morning flight home to DC.

Well, a freak snowstorm shows up, our flight gets delayed, and when we arrive in Atlanta, everyone and their brother is looking for a hotel room. There's no cabs to be found and everyone is crowding the hotel shuttle buses. After waiting for hours and hours, we finally arrive at the Marriott at 2:00 am....

... to find our reserved room waiting for us. People were trying to sleep in the lobby of the hotel, but our room (an award room, I might add) was safe. I was mighty impressed.

Oh, and we stayed there from 2:00 am to 5:00 am, then woke up to catch the early flight home. :)

I know all hotels overbook at some times. I would think fare in this case would be your room paid for by the hotel and enough points for the hotel stay. Sheraton overbooks a lot more then Hilton does for the most part. It stinks, but it does happen.

To the OP
I am very sorry to hear about your experience and can say while disturbing this is indeed an isolated incident and reasonably rare IMO

Just a reminder and certainly something I have posted in the Hilton forum before. When a problem occurs at any Hilton hotel or any of the other extended brands simply ask to speak or be transferred to Guest Assistance.
You will then be assigned a case number. A resolution is almost certain the majority of time when an issue/concern arises. Failure to follow this procedure could lead to far greater frustration as this is the dept best equipped to handle such concerns.

The Hilton family of brands is one of the very best in the industry when it comes down to guest satisfaction. I am certain you will have a positive outcome. If for any reason you do not get a resolution please feel free to contact me and I will put you in touch with someone who can.
Hilton does value your loyalty even if an individual property didn't in this situation
Hope you will reconsider. I think the Hilton folks run a great program and I consider the program to be the top two or three out there hands down.........
Cheers

I know precisely how you feel. This exact same situation happened to me at the Hilton Manchester Airport in the UK.

After a fair amount of arguing, they agreed to credit the points which I would have earned had I stayed at the Hilton, and refunded the cost of the 'other' room. I said it wasn't good enough - it was their error to re-sell the room despite me telling them of my late arrival, and what good was a 'guarantee' if it wasn't guaranteed.

An email to Guest Assistance got my complaint forwarded to the same manager I spoke to when I was there... they agreed to refund the cost of the 'other' room - even though they had already done this. Guest Assistance thought the matter was now closed!

After even more arguing, and further demands for a free night certificate at any Hilton, or enough points to do the same (30k as they are a category 4), they credited my HHonors account with 20,000 points as a 'Service Recovery Bonus'.

Lessons I learned?
#1: Credit card guarantee means nothing- they will charge no-show and sell the room. Call in the early morning, during the day, and in the evening on the day of the reservation, if you know you are going to be late. That way you catch all possible shift staff, make them aware and ensure that a note is on the reservation.
#2: Be extremely persistent when complaining to the hotel manager and guest assistance. Know what you want as compensation and don't stop until you get it.

FWIW - I was a blue member at the time, going up to silver with that stay - status should have nothing to do with it. Mistakes by the hotel and poor customer service should be compensated no matter what.

Email/call the ES Portland General Manager or the HH Manager (if the property has one). I have never had a bad experience after contacting them. I'm surprised no one from HH has replied yet, always email/call the DD if you're a Diamond.

I'm satisfied with the outcome however I am somewhat disappointed it took two emails and a phone call to receive a response.


Good Day,
I received information earlier regarding an email you sent about your recent stay with us. I would like to thank you for your comments, it is through such candid feedback that we continue to improve upon our products and services. I would like to apologize for the inconvenience that you experienced during your trip to Portland. Overbooking is something that most hotels will do on occasion to overcompensate for anyone who may not show up for their reservation. Unfortunatley we dropped the ball on the 16th and you were the ones to suffer our mistake and for that I am very truly sorry. I have taken the liberty of contacting guest assistance and requested a Be My Guest certificate to be mailed to the address we have on file with your Hilton HHonors account. I know that this does not make up for your previous attempt to stay, but I do hope that you will give us another chance on us! Thank you again for your comments and for bringing your inconvenience to my attention.

BTW remember to use that Be My Guest certificate at the most expensive Hilton property possible. Use Diamond force i.e. to force the highest possible rack rate. The whole thing get charged to the offending property.

BTW remember to use that Be My Guest certificate at the most expensive Hilton property possible. Use Diamond force i.e. to force the highest possible rack rate. The whole thing get charged to the offending property.I like it! ^^^^^

David

I like it! ^^^^^

David

Once I used mine at the Hilton Palm Springs during probably the busiest weekend there. The room rate was in excess of $400+ per night.

BTW you normally get the points/stay credit as if it would be a normal paid night.

Nice outcome, even though it took some time and effort.

Do these Be My Guest certs have any restrictions?

Only in the travel business does a paid or guaranteed payment with a credit card have little or no meaning. If you buy a ticket to a theater or sports event and don't show up by the start of the event, they do not resell your seat. If you pay for or put a deposit on a store item and say you will pick it up by a given time/date and are late, they do not keep your money and sell it to another customer. One can go on and on with numerous other examples.

Somehow, this practice - whether it is for hotels or airlines - seems to have become acceptable practice. A guarantee or a deposit payment should be just that. I don't know how one can ever get this changed as long as "everyone" does it. I'm not a big moralist but to me this is immoral and it should be made illegal. The offending party should have to do more than refund your money or give you some minor compensation.