Originally Posted by
Land-of-Miles
What a shocking idea that a property should seek to sell it's vacant rooms and push customers up the value chain
Hilton is not the only chain to do this, more and more hotels are offering "Executive Upgrade Specials" at check in (I have encountered this at several SPG Properties) which tends to make the lounge rather more "festive" than it would typically be.
There is no part of the HH programme either explicit or implied that says that a property will not seek to aggressively sell unsold inventory to maximise its income. All e-Standby does is to make this quite transparent, but it could be happening in many other subtle ways even without the e-standby programme.
I would obviously prefer that every property that I stay in would not try to sell it's Presidential Suite and instead upgrade me to it on my $70 lowest possible advance discount AAA rate. I am however mature enough to know that isn't a realistic expectation.
Even making allowance for your intentional hyperbole, you are still missing (or, perhaps, avoiding) the point.
Hilton promises the potential for space available upgrades for those who qualify for elite status through giving Hilton vast amounts of business.
The NOR1 program seeks to make space available upgrades unavailable by selling them to, presumably, even non-status customers.
To use your example, someone who stays at a Hilton one night per year, and pays $9 for the upgrade gets a better room than a Diamond who stays 80 or 90 nights per year at Hilton properties based, in part, upon the promise that he could receive the space available upgrade.
One one hand, Hilton has a pleased one-time-per-year customer, and $9 more in the till.
One the other hand, they have just irritated a customer that spends (or, previously spent) 25% of his lifetime sleeping with his head on a Hilton pillow... and now may seek other options in the future.
Please enlighten me as to how this is a prudent business practice.
I tried, in an earlier thread, to make a very valid analogy to airline FC upgrades.
Let me try another now.
"I'm sorry Mr. Land-of-Miles. Yes, you did have a confirmed upgrade for your room at the $70 AAA rate. But Mr. StayingHomeIsBetter just offered us $150 for your room. We decided to aggressively sell your room to maximize our income. I'm sure you will understand."
Yes, there are many ways that a travel provider can aggressively maximize today's income. Even more, if they want to risk next year's income.
I'll go back to my prior point. For a frequent traveler award program to achieve its intended purpose, it must have the integrity necessary to convince frequent travelers that they have a reasonable shot at attaining the alluded to benefits of frequent custom.
The NOR1 program introduces a high degree of uncertainty with respect to attaining the promised Diamond benefits.