Originally Posted by
escapefromphl
While I don't condone over entitled status matchers demanding upgrades, this is what hard earned hotel chain status is **supposed** to be for. By this I mean if I'm going to spend $20K+ at a chain a year having some sort of designation to set me apart from the masses even when I go to a property I have never been to before. To me this is the primary value of having a hotel chain status. I suspect Hilton views Diamond as more of a marketing tool to grab a greater share of your wallet, and maybe they have gone too far in this direction.
I've gotten nice Diamond upgrades at properties I've never stayed at before, and sometimes I get no upgrade at properties I've stayed at before, of course it all varies depending on occupancy, how many other Diamonds are there, what they've sold, etc.
When assigning rooms and upgrades a well run Hilton Family hotel will run a report that shows them not only who is Diamond, Gold, and Silver but ranks the members based on factors such as how often they've stayed at that hotel, how often they've stayed at that brand of hotel, then how often they stay at all brands of Honors hotels. In other words, the hotel does know if someone is a comped Diamond with zero previous stays (now, whether or not the hotel uses that information is another story).