Analogy: does negotiating with terrorists legitimize terrorism? Nope.

Hilton was more than gracious in asking Dirk what he would accept in exchange for dropping the multitude of free rooms. If I were Hilton, I would cancel every single booking, and tell Dirk to get lost (i.e., "we don't negotiate with terrorists"). No business, no matter how desperate, ever needs a "customer" like this.

Then, instead of bargaining in good faith as Hilton has done, Dirk continued to squeeze Hilton for everything he can. If Hilton had taken the same position as Dirk, they would have simply cancelled every reservation and not even bothered letting him know, just to "teach him a lesson". Isn't that what you're doing to Hilton, teaching them a lesson about not loading $0 rates into your system?


Suppose you go into a jewelry store, and you see that the salesperson is not there, and all the display cases are unlocked. Would you be justified in taking as much jewelry as you can carry out of the store, and later saying you taught them a lesson about not locking the cases? After all, now they know to lock the cases, and in fact you've "saved" them the jewelry they might have lost to all those future un-locked cases.


Dirk, I appreciate your "coming out". However, I sharply disagree with what you've done, and I am stating my opinion.