Originally Posted by
The Road Goes On Forever
Housekeeping has nothing to do with it (past waiting on them to put out of order room(s) back in service). The rest of what you mentioned, while not everything, is accurate.
Sooo many people make the assumption, daily, that a property knows exactly what the app is showing you. We have no idea if the app even is working (unless we get an internal alert) let alone what rooms it's showing you as "available".
Room location is a big N/A to the Hampton Satisfaction Guarantee. All of that stuff - 1st floor-high floor-low floor-helipad view-etc. is a request and unless you've made an arrangement with someone at the property it's never a guarantee. If it can be made to happen, a property will usually do their best to make it happen. If it can't, sucks to suck. Plenty of people ..... and moan about wanting room type x here there and everywhere, whether it actually exists in that particular area or floor of the building or not just like they like to pull out the - we'll I'm Diamond card. Lol! You and everybody else. Get in line.
The same as if you picked a room during OLCI, and then at the property you want to change it, it's not true that nothing can be done but per Hilton training, you chose the room - inherently that's what you get. If you realistically didn't want it, that's on you - don't chose it.
Well the issue is on the first floor I have found there tend to be noise issues, room odor issues (breakfast, indoor pool, or laundry area proximity), room humidity issues (indoor pool), privacy issues (window straight out at parking lot), or some combination of those. Really if these issues cause me to not be able to sleep that is where the satisfaction guarantee comes in. So I wouldn't attempt to exercise the satisfaction guarantee due to "room location" - it would be due to some combination of those other issues (which were probably all caused by room location but theoretically some of those issues could have happened anywhere in the hotel).
I was recently in a Comfort Inn on the first floor, was a Hotwire stay and I do not ask for anything on those stays, but had no issues there. It really just depends on the hotel. I am used to and know I run the risk of getting "bad rooms" as the Hotwire customer like those first floor rooms, but if I am at Hilton and have status and am paying the property directly for the stay (or redeeming points), I do not expect to receive the Hotwire room.
How exactly does the app populate available rooms? I assume Hilton must link in and know what specific rooms are "occupied" and what rooms are "departing" on a given day and the app opens up the "already open" or "departing" rooms for customers to select. Obviously a lot of potential things can happen that makes a room not depart on schedule or causes a room to go out of service...
I still like the pick your own room element. I've unknowingly picked plenty of bad rooms over the years. I've started to look at maps of the hotels (Google Maps-Street Images) to get an idea what the surroundings are like to make more "educated" room choices.