kirkwoodj

Never any problems with staff, at FD, EL, or restaurant/bar facilities. Including at recent stays. Several even called me by name.

turtlemichael

I too have never had any issue with the staff. I have found them to be consistently friendly and professional. There are things wrong with the hotel - breakfast in Glass, small rooms, lack of award availability - but imho the inadequacies do not include the staff.

ukengineer

I am experiencing the seemingly common issue of this hotel having no standard award space. The standard room for this hotel, a Hilton Guest Room, is not available on any night that I could find during the entire next year. I find it unlikely that they are fully booked for the next year. I pointed this out to an HHonors agent and she has reached out to the hotel for an explanation. I will update the thread when I hear back from them.

jefftiger

I spoke with a Diamond Desk agent a few weeks ago and she stated that she's never been able to book anyone into this hotel at the standard award rate. She told me to not even bother with the premium awards (and I concurred). They mess around with dynamic pricing and sometimes the premium rate turns out to be quite good on a given night (like a Saturday). But, usually premium rates are outlandishly high.

But, as has been stated numerous times in this thread, this hotel doesn't abide by the rules, regardless of what they or previous Hilton Representatives have stated. I find this to be very frustrating. A lot of high-end properties do play by the rules and make standard award rates relatively easy to get. For example, my wife and I were just at the Waldorf Astoria Shanghai last week and we were treated amazingly well on a 3-night award stay, upgraded to a beautiful junior suite. Why does the Hilton Sydney have to be such an outlier. If they don't like the HHonors awards system, shouldn't they just leave the chain?

OnTheCentreline

Hey jefftiger, I feel your ire re your treatment at Hilton SYD, but there is a threshold with any service provider when loyalty (and its supposed perks) comes a far second to having the guest experience you seek. I appreciate your motive behind the recommendation that SYD Hilton “should leave the chain”, but to be fair – maybe it’s a better deal that ‘you’ should find somewhere more preferable to your needs and pass by the so called loyalty perks. SYD has some really great hotels, outside of the Hilton brand, why not give these properties (you’ll find them all on FT) a try?

ukengineer

I agree with you. It is not in Hilton's best interest to have hotels which skirt their rules. Hilton should either enforce the rules or the hotel should leave the chain. The hotel is trying to reap the benefits of Hilton brand recognition and loyalty without participating fully in HHonors.

scottnothing

Sydney also has some of the best cafe food known to humankind.

Surry Hills, Darlinghurst, Alexandria, Potts Point are filled with fantastic cafes that run rings around the Glass breakfast.

Glass is definitely not worth A$42 - so if it is not included in your rate then definitely venture elsewhere. And even if it is, please consider venturing outside of the hotel at least one morning of your stay.

jefftiger

I definitely concur with your points. In my case, I use the HHonors program to enable my wife and I to travel to unusual destinations that we could otherwise not afford if we had to pay out of pocket. Our current China/Australia/Korea holiday has taken advantage of point stays at Hilton properties in Shanghai, Melbourne, and Seoul. Since the Hilton Sydney was unavailable at reasonable point redemption rates, we chose to stay at an Accor property on a points redemption.

I value the HHonors program for the ability to stay at properties for free. I've had great success over the years staying in wonderful locations using the points that I've accumulated for spending nearly 2.5 years of my life on revenue stays at Hilton family properties. My frustration with the Hilton Sydney comes from the perception that it's nearly impossible to stay here using points (at reasonable redemption rates). I appreciate that they've decided that their business model works well for them, but it seems to me well outside what the HHonors program is meant to offer.

IcHot

Sad to hear. It was one of the highlights of our trip several years back and one of the reasons I stay diamond, just in case...

turtlemichael

It is not really a question of the hotel being fully booked. It clearly isn't except on the rare occasion. It is a question of the base room grade, called Guestroom, being fully booked and I can believe that is the case for almost all nights even a year in advance. That is because they have a number of what I am sure are long term contracts with airlines to accommodate crew. There is a regular procession of flight and cabin crew through the hotel. You only need to be in Reception at arrival time to see. They occupy the base rate rooms.

The real issue is how this hotel grades rooms. The differences between the vast majority of rooms are minute - an extra square metre or two of space, a bathrobe, a bigger tube of shampoo. The rooms with these added "facilities" are called guestroom plus, deluxe, deluxe plus etc and pull higher rates. In many places these rooms would all be the same category. As the HH scheme seems only to have to apply to base rooms and Sydney uses such definitions, there are never rooms available for redemption at the standard rates.

While this may be astute management of inventory it means that the scheme is skirted. Sydney is not the only hotel which does it and because it continues I can only assume that the powers that be are happy to tolerate it and live with no award redemptions at standard rates at this hotel.

Sydney is to a certain extent aspirational as a destination. I wonder what sort of protest there would be if say the Conrad Maldives did the same thing.

ukengineer

Yes, I was meaning that the Guest Rooms were fully booked, not the entire hotel. Based on your description of their airline contracts, it sounds more plausible that all of the Guest Rooms are booked. As you said, they are creating separate room categories for minute differences. If they aren't violating any HHonors policies for award room availability, I would still argue that they are violating the spirit of the program. I think that it is in Hilton's best interest to make sure their hotels have at least some standard award availability.

agjil

Is Point & Cash award ever available for this hotel?
It looks like this property just does not open P&C inventory at all.

777 global mile hound

They rarely have standard room availability even on points
Its as if they stopped participating in HH years ago
Sorry I wouldn't hold my breath for cash and points inventory
I'd try another program frankly
The one thing you can count on here is extortionate revenue rates

turtlemichael

Agree with you in relation to the availability of rooms for points and cash. I've never seen it but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened. Equally, as pointed out in many posts here, standard points availability is also rare.

With regard to your point about rates being high here, how can you say they are exorbitant if they achieve those rates which the hotel clearly does? I've seen lower rates in slow times and high rates in busy times. This seems like good management to me.

It is a different argument to say they don't play the game in relation to award room availability.

777 global mile hound

No argument here And I can't say they overcharge 12 months out of the year with all due respect
However I do look at their tactics year after year and see a pattern
Seeing if people are foolish to bite with high priced non refundable and daily rates way in advance
My idea of a fair hotel offering some discounts booking out 6 months or more in advance perhaps offering a special member special for loyalty
I've compared their rates for years as a point of reference albeit more typically in high season along with all the other contenders SPG Marriott IHG and a host of others i compare for 20 years now
Its a game of cat and mouse and I see the Hilton in my own perception doing the opposite of hotels overpricing their daily rates way out rack rate and above
Then lowering them when nobody bites two to three weeks before arrival
Also adding inventory of standard rooms that gets held back reconverted to point inventory so the unsold rooms don't perish.

My insiders at Hilton confirm much of what has been said here
I can't say the Hilton Sydney are the only ones that get aggressive but they milk the cow more then their competitors from what I monitor
Quite frankly many fall for their tactics.
More power to them however you won't catch me anywhere near the property and not just because they excessively overprice months in advance and hold back standard award availability.
More because of their mediocre quality and performance are below that of other area properties I stay in Sydney for the price point in my own limited experience

IMHO as somewhat of a cross reference I believe the Hilton Melbourne South Wharf on the other hand to be a standup property to do business with overall making Hilton reasonably proud
That includes fair market pricing in advance and close to arrival,above average generous HH in house Diamond recognition and extremely fair transparent reward availability ^
My two cents