First thing I noticed on making Diamond 2 weeks ago (fast track that was perfectly timed for a period of intense travel for me!) was that I started getting follow-up emails telling me that Hilton valued my business/opeinion and was I happy with my just-completed stay?

Clearly a Diamond advantage worth striving for...

Seriously, one other recent event that may illustrate a difference was in booking a Scandic award in Copenhagen. The Hilton.com site didn't list Scandic as one of the choices to search. Indeed, there was a hyperlink to a page that said Scandic can't be booked on-line and provided the phone numbers to Europe for direct booking. I called the customer service line on the back of my Gold card and asked for the number for the Diamond desk based on my new, exalted status. The CA gave me the number and connected me. The Diamond CA arranged the stay without a problem and thereby saved me a long-dtsance call to Europe (love to be on hold at $$$/min!).

Before everybody tells me you can book Scandic awards on-line (as a friend in the UK did), there may be paths to different pages where you can book a Scandic award on-line, but everytime I waded through the site it got to a page that allowed checking one of the usual Hilton family members or "All Hilton", but no Scandic and the specific link message I mentioned above.