I joined the Honors program in 1998 and have been a Diamond for many of the past years.

Because of the economy, and the removal of the rolling year qualification, I lost Diamond at the end of last year and had to climb my way back. I had a few problems this year from beg bugs to poor experiences at hotels to Hilton's refusal to document my stays. I was frustrated by the responses I was getting as a silver and gold member and just knew that if I was patient, the Diamond desk would help. When I got to Diamond, I asked for help, and I did not receive it. Thankfully I found help at the hotel level to get my points that the Diamond desk wouldn't help with. In the past years I really never had the problems I have had this year, but my experience with the Diamond Desk in the past as best I can remember was excellent.

Well, IMO the Diamond desk is not what it once was. From my limited dealings it seems the past professionals who manned the Diamond Desk who understood the business traveler are no longer there. The Diamond Desk has been hobbled hand-tied and castrated and have at best been ineffective. I have wasted countless hours on the phone with them, several of them, and most times I am transferred customer service or to the executive offices. The Diamond desk has not taken responsibility to solve any of my problems. Issues are sent to a black box where the problem will be "reviewed". I have never heard back, never, from one of these reviews. They refuse to respond to email. They do everything not to adjudicate issues in my favor. Problems are not documented in my file. They have not once stepped in and corrected a problem and done the right thing.

There is a relentless barrage of canned meaningless apologies that are spit out incessantly. These apologies have added to frustrations. Other than one person, the ones I have spoken to don't appear to have ever stayed at a hotel and do not have the ability to empathize with issues common and important to business travelers. That one person who made promises to help me, like many others I have dealt with, refuses to reply to any follow-up correspondence. My experience confirms what I have read in past posts. I no longer feel appreciated or respected.

I feel betrayed. I'm unfortunately a fool sitting with about 2 million points left in my account, all earned with head on pillow. Hilton has made their point clearly through the lack of service at the Diamond Desk that I have been deluded to think I was someone that would matter when I called with a problem. With the experience so far this year, I have no trust that the Diamond desk will be there for me in the event that these ridiculous problems continue.

My suspicion is that Blackstone figured out that Diamond members were such a small percentage of their business and that it makes no business sense to concentrate on them. They are showing that they can treat their Diamond members poorly and if some of them leave, it is only a very tiny part of their business. The money is in the huge numbers of gold members who don't mind bad service as they are not Diamond. Hence the devaluation of all services for their most loyal customers, and my experience is that this palpable when dealing with the Diamond Desk. This Diamond Desk is about as effective as and on par with the likes of the BBB.