I am the "300-room-guy", 318 room-nights to be precise. And yes, as of September 7th, 2001 - 2:00pm CEST, I think of using them all.

Summary of this post: I hold 318 room-nights in 29 reservations at three different properties for dates all over 2002, not 300 rooms for one night in one property. I could use all reservations I hold theoretically, but will not use all. I have not decided which I will not use. I did not contact Hilton to ask for a freebie, they asked me for my price to give up the reservations when I asked them about a change in one of my reservations.

I have thought long after reading this post if I should post a statement here or not, but finally I decided that I have to clear up some things. I post this that late because I have been traveling the past days, and departed about 30 minutes after I read about the offer from Hilton. The eMail to "The List" was about the last thing I did before getting to the airport.


The reason for booking that many rooms is pretty simple: I am still four to ten month out to the dates I made the reservations for, so I booked every date-combination that may be interesting for me for next year's holiday. I carefully reviewed the cancellation-policy that goes with these rates, and it says that I can cancel them up to 24 hours in advance without penalty if I like to. That's what I am going to do when I finally have decided when and where to go.

I was reviewing my reservation the other day when I found out that three of my reservations had been altered manually by the hotel, and that triggered me to contact Hilton what had happened to this three reservations.

When they replied they did not adress my original question but I was asked what I would ask for giving up my 0$-reservations, and as I am used to negotiating, I asked for something pretty hefty to have something to spare for negotiating. In that response I asked for 10 years comped diamond, honoring all nights I really need at the confirmed 0$-rate and a couple of HHonors points (unspecified amount) for each night I don't. I still think this is a reasonable base to find a mutual agreement benefiting both sides.


I do not see this as "blackmail" or "extortion" as it was posted here, because I did not contact Hilton with a request for any freebies and a threat to do something if they do not do what I want them to do, but they ASKED me for "my price" for giving up the reservations NOW. Before that point, I was still thinking of having the reservations I need to be honored and cancelling those I don't need without anything in return.

So they asked me what I want to get, and I gave them something to negotiate. Their offer was what was posted in the article printed in the WSJ, and it is my opinion that this is pretty lame, especially since this is the third time in twelve month that they had this kind of problems and the rates were in their systems from at least July 21st to August 8th, a span of 18 days. It was not a temporary glitch or system-malfuction judging from that point of view.


318 room-nights, btw., are far different from 300 reservations or 300 rooms. These 318 room-nights are booked in a total of 29 reservations in three properties. But if you are traveling with a family that requires three rooms, each night of your stay counts at three room-nights. So let me do some math:

I booked three weeks in spring next year twice (once for each property in question, each week seperately) for three rooms, making this 126 room-nights in six reservations. The same I have done for the summer, which comes to another 126 room-nights, bringing the total to 252 room-nights and twelve reservations. The rest of the 318 room-nights (66 room-nights) are distributed all over the upcoming year and over the three different properties where I might have the oportunity of visiting the corresponding places.

It is my understanding that this way of booking is a common practice. When you see a good hotel-rate that is refundable, you will likely book that just in case you could use that reservation with a certain likelyhood. If you don't, then you cancel, and that's it. This is also the way many people that use Priceline work: They reserve a cancellable backup until they are successful getting their price at Priceline, and then cancel their backup, and I'm sure many of you do not see anything bad about this.


So while I am risking being flamed all over by posting this here and having a live eMail-adress in my profile, I still stand to what I have done and why. And hopefully in the light of these extra explainations (which I must admit the original poster did not have), my actions do not look deplorable any more.

Greetings - Dirk