Originally Posted by
EuropeanPete
Quoting the Hilton Honors T&Cs here (#18), my bolding:
"Any tax liability incurred (if any) in connection with the receipt and/or use of Hilton Honors Rewards, including, but not limited to, local or city occupancy taxes, international departure tax, customs fees, airport surcharges, non-resident tourism fees or individual income tax is the sole responsibility of the user."
It seems pretty clear that is not what it says.
Im guessing they finally added this after complaints. I do know it wasn't always there. When MY started tourist lodging tax, this wasn't in there at that time. I had multiple Hilton CS reps agree that awards should cover all fees (based on wording at that time).
The hotel would not budge. They kept changing why I should pay. 1)that it was illegal for hotel to "cover" the fee, 2)that if they did pay it, then i wasn't in effect actually being charged the fee, and 3)that awards only covered "required " fees, and that as the fee wasn't charged to all, that it wasn't "required " under meaning to be covered by award.
Finally Hilton CS got in touch with the corporate owner. The corporate company agreed that the wording left enough open to interpretation that they covered it. Hotel manager wasn't happy. I was on a multi-month award booking as this was booked just before the points required went up. Add in 5th night free, and I ended up booked i think for 6 months on points. Despite 6 months, it only cost them i think $360 (I think was like $2 a day at the time). Manager continued raising a fuss and few weeks later Hilton CS contacted me and said going forward, #3 from earlier would apply. (Ie unless it applies to all guests, not just some, it would not be considered "required " and thus not covered)