Hi all,

I've been a bit busy with travelling this weekend, but I thought I'd clarify a few things so as to not misrepresent!

The hotel did eventually budge but only after about five-ten minutes of discussing and to'ing and fro'ing. I was declined about three times of asking. I had been told that the upgrade was a "space available upgrade" and that there was no space available but that I could upgrade for 50 Euro. I argued the point that this meant that here was space available and was eventually upgraded. As mentioned though, I would have happily have just had my room shifted a few doors down to the same room type and wouldn't have known any better. I was just trying to exercise one of the benefits that the loyalty program offered. I heard the person at reception ask her manager who seemed to agree with her at first, and their conversation ensued for a little while before eventually returning to me to allow an upgrade waiving the fee. It appeared that this was done begrudgingly and it really didn't not feel very welcoming at all after a long set of flights. I know that the issues are unconnected but the foyer was being heavily renovated too which was not that welcoming given that the first time that this was mentioned to me on the website is during check-in (usually renovations are mentioned in a pink or yellow bar at the top of the booking webpage but this was not the case when I booked as I can confirm from the screenshot I took at the time of booking).

A number of you have suggested that I should just let my wallet talk. There are several other Hilton properties in Dublin, Ireland so this is actually very easy to do. I'm over in Dublin about once every three weeks at the moment so I can just return to one of the other properties - the Hilton Dublin Airport have been fairly excellent with their upgrades, has a great breakfast, and offer free drinks vouchers too which is really kind of them. I simply wanted to stay in Dublin City Centre between flights as my partner was with me on this trip which she usually isn't and we wanted to have dinner out during our overnight layover, and I thought I'd try out the Conrad given that that it seemed to be a quite reputable chain - my one and only experience with Conrad is now with the Dublin Conrad and it means that it isn't likely to be a chain that I'll revisit for some time, which is a shame really.

A number of you have mentioned the Diamond status match as being the reason that Diamond members aren't welcomed with open arms to hotels. I wouldn't want to misrepresent myself at all - I used the Diamond status match last year because I was thinking of moving my stays from Marriott - the Hilton status match just happened to come along at the right time for me and their portfolio was significantly better than Starwood, Accor or Best Western! I'll naturally qualify for Diamond status through stays as I'm averaging around three or four stays a month since matching in December, but I didn't want to misrepresent myself as being a longstanding Diamond member at all - quite the opposite, but I understand your frustration! In my case, the status match is serving its purpose of encouraging me to move over to Hilton and so far I've been fairly impressed apart from a few BPG claims being rejected for bizarre reasons and the slightly unwelcoming check-in at the Conrad in Dublin that my original post mentioned.

Nonetheless, thank you for all your help and thoughts. My intention was to find out if 50 Euro was odd when being declined a space-available upgrade as I've not experienced it so far in my stays.

Simon.