Flying_Duck

Called the Honors desk to get the credit for my "stay". The agent very definitively told me "since there was no money paid by you, there are no points, and no credfit towards elite level". I told her that this made no sense (and the reasons for it making no sense) and asked her to check with her supervisor. After a long wait, she came back and said "My supervisor confirms that your are not entitled to any award level credit or HH points". I then asked to talk to the Supervisor and again a long time passed. This time she came back and said "Sir, you are correct, you will get 1300 HH points and 110 DL miles and credit totwards the award level". This entire process took 15 minutes of my time ($300 - 500/h is my usual consulting fee!) and had to be initiated by me.

You would think the "Hilton Family" had learned something from Tom Farmer's experience back in 2001 and the scathing PP presentation of his experience that circulated all over the internet - but I think not! The resistance I met in getting any acknowledgement of this episode as being a true inconvenience to me, including the lack of concern when told to "walk" and being something that at a minimum should not impact my ability to earn points towards my elite level, is nothing short of amazing. I would think Hilton would volunteer to remedy the basic stay/point issue proactively instead of forcing me to fight for it through a semi-adversarial exchange, having to go up the rank to avoid beeing blown off (again!).

Now, as part of my consultant business, I am quite proficient in making pursuasive PP presentations. I am thinking about volunteering my time to make a follow-up to "Yours is a Very Bad Hotel" called "How Failing to Learn From the Past Makes you Lose Customers!".