rdchen

Based on reddirt14's experience mentioned in the Bora Bora thread, looks like HH is having a major system glitch related to award booking.

b1513

I know what you're saying but I can't get all bent out of shape over this. They seem to be trying to fix this new system and when it gets fixed, it gets fixed. I was told you can call the hotel directly and make the arrangements that way. How true that is, I don't know because I didn't try since my reservations are In Europe. I'll try daily with The DD and let everyone know what happens when it is resolved.

Bobette

Land-of-Miles

Since SPG seems to be the model for these changes I wonder if they carry across the 200% points for a suite versus 100% points for a room as per SPG or 100% points to upgrade a revenue room?

reddirt14

It's a complete disaster for me trying to book a room right now.

Guava

I don't see how they could entertain such proposal, it's way too complicated. What if there is a status change between the time of booking vs. the check-in time? Remember elite upgrade is based on your status on check-in date, not when you book the stay.

In any event, based on experience with similar upgrade program under SPG, even SPG Platinum do not get a discount when booking confirmed Suite upgrade in advance and the SPG Platinum are entitled to Suite Upgrade in writing in their program whereas HH Diamond Suite upgrade is at best, an unwritten rule and So it's hard to imagine HHonors will go beyond what SPG offers.

If anything, I expect the Suite upgrade with Hilton HHonors using points to be more expensive than SPG, comparatively, because it appears, there is no capacity control on such inventory, which is already superior to SPG. But the money has to come from somewhere. Some of my experience with Hilton HHonors hotels which do Suite upgrade - their Suites tend to be amazing and what I would consider beyond a comparable "Standard Suite" under the SPG program. My guess is that's because Hilton does not officially has a Suite upgrade for Elites and they tend to have less small Suites as well - any available Suites tend to be larger or better furnished because those are usually sold for money. Because Hilton doesn't seem to have evolved to a point where they are using the definition of "Standard Suite" - an exclusively SPG jargon, my hunch is that under this new program, Hilton HHonors hotels would be forced to open up their limited Suite inventory for upgrade using points. And in response, hotel management would likely demand a compensation in points that is consistent with the cost of providing such award, which could potentially be sold for the value for several times that of a regular guest room. The key words here, if you read the new Upgrade awards carefully, is that the Premium Rooms and Suites awards appear to be free of capacity control as well, which I must say is a major departure compared to SPG - something guests must pay a premium in order to enjoy. As such, I am less concerned about elite upgrade dilution because chances are, the cost would be high enough that it would deter all except the most serious and inelastic customers.

Guava

As a follow up from yesterday, I gave your method some thoughts last night and felt that a replacement cost based method where you value each HH Point at $0.01 USD would probably end up overstating the intrinsic value of such Points & Money award. What I mean is if you do a comparison of these awards vs. VIP 4 nights+ and AXON awards, then the question is which one is a better option? We know AXON sometimes is a better value than VIP awards but what about on a per night basis? If someone were to book 4 nights+ for a stay, would it still make sense for the member to use Points & Money assuming availability is not an issue? Essentially the question comes to down the cash cost you have to pay on the P&M award vs. the difference in per night cost in points of the VIP/AXON. For example, Category 5 for 5 nights under VIP = 28,000 points per night. P&M asks for 17,500 pts per night + $60. The savings in points = 10,500 points at a cost of $60 USD + taxes. The tax rate is equal to the hotel's local tax rate, usually between 10~20%, so this roughly equals an actual cash cost around $70 on average. Then the question becomes, do you rather save 10,500 points or save $70?

If you value 10,500 pts at $0.01, you are going to answer $105 > $70, so you will go for the P&M award, which isn't necessarily a wrong answer. Though, as a reminder the cost of $0.01 point per HH point is a last resort rate that most people usually do when they are short on points - because it is a rather expensive way of acquiring HH points. The actual value of each HH point in 2011, is closer to $0.0055 USD on average in my own modeling or roughly half of its direct purchase cost.

There are different ways to quantify the value of HH points, it depends on how you acquire most of these points - through credit cards or through stays or both. In any event, the intrinsic value of 10,500 points in this example will be far lower than the $105 savings, and most likely below the expected actual cash outlay of $70 ($60 + X tax rate). Under such modeling, it would suggest P&M award is less desirable to a comparable VIP award. The assumptions is that the member will have no shortage of HH points in the near future and could generate enough HH points on a yearly basis, consistently, to make such valuation true. If this assumption doesn't hold and the member is short on points but less concerned about cash outlays, then the valuation will not hold and the savings under P&M will be real.

NorthOrSouth

Yes, been trying to book the Hong Kong Conrad as well. Availability was fine about 10 days ago when I was checking but I've run through trying out dates from August to January and all were not available. Was thinking of ringing HHonors on Monday to see what they could access.

Also tried the Singapore Conrad. It was showing with points availability but when I then went to book it the points option disappeared.

Think there might be a few bugs in their new system.

Land-of-Miles

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Land-of-Miles

This is what I was thinking too. Effectively with the generally good value suite upgrade for points programme via SPG, the hotel is substituting a suite upgrade for some additional points for any member prepared to pay for additional capacity for free upgrades for Plats. I have never noticed this as an issue and increasingly pay for a suite or use SPG points to get a suite when I really want one.

I have so rarely had a suite upgrade at Hilton properties (I can think of only 3 upgrades like this ever as a Diamond with Hilton) that it isn't even an "unwritten rule" it is a rare exception to the standard Exec Floor upgrade that a Diamond is entitled to.

The HH approach to upgrades appears rather different from SPG, but then the points for upgrade element of the SPG programme throws up some quirks too (like almost 100k points at say the Westin Whistler to secure the most marginal of upgrades). I am really keen to understand the level at which these upgrades are pitched. I fear you are probably right about this being higher than Starwood given that upgrades can be booked far in advance (rather than only 5 days out under SPG).

Whole properties could quickly become overrun with points upgraders at the expense of paying guests. I would really like to understand how this will play at resorts like the Conrad Rangali where upgrades to the better villas are rather expensive.

Guava

Though SPG Suite upgrade program has become so standardized, sometimes it feels a little sterile if not almost mechanical.

I think your experience is more typical of an European HH Diamond member. However, Suite upgrade happen more often in North America. I found it hard to get Suite upgrade in Europe even though they tend to treat Diamond member with greater respect and more additional benefits. In North America, Suite upgrade are surprisingly frequent. Even taking my last 10 stays into account, excluding Hampton Inns, which typically do not carry Suites, I'd say the probability is about 50-50. And when there is a Suite upgrade, it's usually very good Suites, far better than the so called Standard Suite from SPG hotels.

SPG Suite upgrade can be confirmed at time of booking if you are entirely using points for the stay. You are correct, if paying for a standard room using cash, it's only 5 days out. It's unclear how Hilton will differentiate between the two. In any event, my guess is the HH Premium Room / Suite Upgrade or Award will work similarly to the Aeroplan awards with Air Canada. AC offers a reward scheme where you can use miles to redeem until the very last seat on all their flights. However, the cost of such redemption is outrageous, it could be 7-8 times the value of a standard award. So it sounds like the hotel will have a lot of liberty in setting their own Premium Room and Suite price using points. I don't expect a standardized formula similar to SPG based on hotel category. More likely than not, if supply is smaller as I think it is, then we should expect to pay an astronomical / outrageous value in points for these Suites. And it will likely be very hotel specific. Some will price their Suites so far out of the market - others, will be more reasonable.

I don't think this concern is very serious. If the W Maldvies is a good comparable, SPG claims there is no standard room on that property and the least expensive room you can book using point is about 70-80K Starpoints / night. For our Hilton members, that's roughly the value of about 300K HH points per night. Then, the next category up will go up by about 20K for 90-95K Starpoints / night. Because my guess is each HHonors property will decide what price they will charge for Room Upgrade, the property could easily demand something like 90K HH points extra per night for an upgrade to the Spa Overwater Villa at the Conrad Maldvies, in addition to the 50K HH point rate per night. Essentially, this will more than double the cost of staying there using points. Even then, my estimate may still be generous, considering how inexpensive Conrad Maldvies is vs. the W Maldives, using points.

jasonvr

However, this does raise a concern I had not previously thought about. If the W Maldives can state that there is no such thing as a standard room, what is to prevent the Conrad Rangali from stating the same thing. They already have exemptions in the HHonors rules for the Maldives properties. Could we be on the verge of seeing only "premium" rooms at certain properties and not having the option of doing standard redemptions? It certainly seems to be a possibility opened by the existence of Premium Room rewards

mnredfox

I wonder if you use pts for a say Exec room UG, can you still get UG to a suite (yes I know suites are not entitled UG's)?

Guava

Your point is a valid one though I wouldn't worry too much about it at this point. What we are doing here so far are educated guesses and speculations based on existing comparable. Given Hilton's history of poor communication to customers, even if they start to implement these new awards in the next week or so, it will likely be a while before their front line staff are sufficiently trained to convey to us the correct information and details we want to know. Chances are, there will be a lot of confusion. I guess giving the readers here a sense of what to expect so that they don't hope for too much is probably a good reality check so that some people won't go ballistic when they find out they can't upgrade to Suite for only 10-20K points more as they would hope.

Coming back to the concern you raised, Hilton has so far opted not to go the route that SPG often uses re: some of their resort properties. One of the main weaknesses of SPG is the overly liberal use of non-standard room. There are just too many properties that are granted exceptions here and there, too many to count. And the prices on those non-standard room properties using points tend to be outrageous. Hilton has quite a few high end resorts that consist mainly of villas that are more or less equal to properties that SPG would consider "non-standard rooms available", all the Maldives properties would be for instance and so are the French Polynesian ones and a few others in the Indian Ocean like Seychelles, just to name a few I can remember right now. They have not gone the way of SPG in attempting to charge double or more for these properties in terms of point cost. What they have done is restrict availability and impose other limitations such as disallowing Diamond Forced Availability but to my knowledge, the most expensive award you could pay on a per night basis is the Grand Wailea and W=A Maldives at 80K for high season. Not a single property that I can think of asks for say double of their assigned category, for example Category 7 Level X 2 = 50K X 2 = 100K, which is actually very common at SPG. I think Hilton will maintain their existing definition where awards will be available based on Standard Room availability simply because we know already what Standard Rooms are for these existing properties that are virtually all Villas. Then again, a lot of things are changing and some of these high end redemption at these exclusive resorts have been too good to be true for quite a long time using HH points. I hope they don't change this long standing policy but the more I think about it, the more I think your concern is probably a real one and we could see a select number of properties with increased point cost as a result.

jasonvr

It will be interesting to watch what Hilton does with this. Your comparison to the French Polynesia resorts are especially valid since they used to be Starwood and as Hilton's have maintained normal redemption rates. However, Hilton has created a very limited set of "super-special" properties with very high redemption rates, but I'd say they both warrant it - The Qasr al Sharq and Ho'olei at the Grand Wailea. Both are WA's. The Ho'olei rooms are basically condos, well beyond a standard room or suite at any other hotel in the chain. The Qasr al Sharq is essentially a palace with all suites. I don't think either is quoted online with point levels, but I believe Ho'olei is about 150k per night. I seem to remember Qasr al Sharq having similar redemption rates.

Guava

I have no experience with either of these two properties and don't believe they even participate in the HHonors program because the HHonors Rewards page does not even list how much they will charge for them. Even as I called recently to book the Grand Wailea, the agent on the phone never offered me the Ho'olei as an option even though I only told him Maui. Plus, if Ho'olei is a redeemable W=A property, I should have been able to book it using my Q3FN that I earned from from Q4 2010, which ended December 31 (the one with 10 nights = 1 certificate deal). It's safe to say those two properties are not even in the program, so no elite benefits and etc. either.