Seph87

I tried searching for a thread on this subject but couldn't find anyhting. Apologies if this should be posted somewhere else.

A few weeks ago I booked some stays at Hilton properties directly through the Hilton website using my new Amex Aspire card. All of the transactions show up on my CC statement with "Hilton" in the name, but they're being categorized as "Travel - Lodging" and the Amex app isn't showing any bonus multiplier on the points. When I look at restaurant transactions made around the same time, it clearly shows the 7x multiplier for restaurants, so I don't think I'm missing anything in the app itself.

Is this normal? The fine print on the CC agreement makes it seem like the bonus multiplier should be posted within a few days of the transaction clearing - but it's already been a number of weeks for me. Is there something I'm missing here, or do I need to call Amex to have them fix the transactions?

mia

Have you already completed the stays, or are these prepaid bookings for future stays?

Where do you see this? I see:

Seph87

These are prepaid bookings for future stays. Also, I am not talking about the points posting to my HH account - I understand that will take a while. I am talking about the Amex app showing bonus points based on transaction type. It's showing me the bonuses for every other type of transaction, but for some reason the Hilton 14x bonus isn't showing.

If this is normal and will all sort itself out in 6-8 weeks, that's fine - I just want to get ahead of this if it's an issue and I need Amex to fix it.

krazykanuck

Has your statement generated? I wouldn't worry until your statement cuts and you can see if they get awarded correctly. I had an issue last year where a single Hampton Inn I stayed at for work wasn't coding for the 14x bonus. Called Amex after I noticed on my statement and they manually credited me the extra points.

notquiteaff

I lost about 9000 Honors points because a stay at a European Hilton property wasn’t coded correctly. Talking and chatting with Amex CSRs resulted in “please wait 8 weeks” and an eventual written complaint (with detailed math, photocopied statement and folio) resulted in a denied case. There was no doubt - the charged amount matched the folio, the card was swiped at the property front desk. I thought about escalating to the executive offices, but eventually decided it wasn’t worth my time and frustration. It did leave me with the impression that Amex customer service sucks.

moe8555

Amex has taken a turn for the worse in this regard. I recently had high hopes about migrating most of my spend to the MR ecosystem, but have had multiple instances of denied 3X on the Green for very clear-cut cases (Blacklane - they even have an Amex Offer for it!, various taxi ordering apps, various restaurants).

As far as I'm concerned, I'm hoping it will come in handy for a retention offer to "make things right."

notquiteaff

from reading the retention thread I get the impression that Amex has preassigned retention offers. Doubtful that they would take into consideration cases where they screwed you out of points, and it seems the agents don’t have a lot or any flexibility :/

krazykanuck

In general it doesn't. I mean once in a while you get a crabby rep, just hang up and call again later. Such is life when dealing with pretty much any company staffed by humans, except Chick Fil A, who I think drug their people to be happy and complaint

Back to the topic at hand, when I called about my stay that didn't code properly the rep was as surprised as I was, as he said "it has Hampton Inn in the name". He filed a case/dispute for the missing points and gave me 3k additional Hilton points for the inconvenience. YMMV depends on who picks up the call I guess.

notquiteaff

In nearly 30 years of membership I have only had one case of requiring customer service. The one mentioned above after a stay at the Hilton Vilamoura in Portugal. (so yes, it has a Hilton in its name). I tend to generally pretty low maintenance when it comes to customer service issues. I have never needed to reach out to Chase or Citi for missing points or really other issues other than requests such as credit line shifts.

First interaction via chat: “please wait eight weeks”
Second interaction via chat, eight weeks later: “I’ll open a case”
Third interaction via phone, two weeks later: “you are right, it should have posted as 14X. I will open a case.” That case was closed as “posted according to rules”
Fourth interaction via letter: “sorry, but the transaction posted per rules that 14x is only for ‘participating hotels or resorts within the Hilton portfolio’. In my letter I had explicitly asked where I can find such a list of participating hotels. Not addressed. My letter was short and to the point and had all the relevant supporting documents.

And I forgot to mention, I didn’t only have the missing points, but I also didn’t receive the $250 resort credit (the hotel is on Hilton.com/resorts). The 3rd (phone) agent was able to finally fix that. But not the 14x issue.

You know what, after thinking about this episode again, I am upset enough again that, when I get home from my current trip, I will write that letter to Amex’ office of the CEO.

mia

While that language appears in marketing material, the Aspire card terms do not include the word participating: You will receive 11 additional Hilton Honors Bonus Points, for a total of 14, for each dollar of eligible purchases charged directly with a property within the Hilton portfolio, including bookings and incidental charges. SOURCE

I would contact Hilton's official Flyertalk representative by PM: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/memb...mbassador.html

poker9ite

I am writing this to bring this to people's attention so they can correct what happened to me on a billing time frame. I have the Hilton Amex Aspire card and have been with Amex for 17 years. I booked a vacation at the Hilton Playa Del Carmen in Mexico from Jan 1 to Jan 5th. This is high season so they have a no cancelation time frame of something like 28 days prior. On Dec 16th for some reason, they billed me the whole amount. I didn't think much of it since if I canceled, I would have to pay it anyway. When I got my next statement, they only gave me 3x points on a 5k stay. I reached out and told them hey this is wrong it needs to be 14X. They opened a case and took a month to come back to tell me I was being denied the extra 11x points. They first tried to say it was because I booked it outside of a Hilton. That was a lie. I have never booked outside of Hilton. Then they said the Hotel was not part of the Hilton portfolio. I told them it can't not be since I booked it at Hilton.com. Then they said it was not their problem I had to take it up with Hilton Rewards. I called Hilton up and they said no it was Amex and got them on the phone. I spoke with a rep at Amex and she truly tried to figure this out. She was chatting with her boss about this. Her boss came back and told her that the terms of the card say that to get the extra 11 points you must be billed the room charges at the time of checkout. Since the hotel randomly charged me in advance, they won't give me the points. Even better is I brought this to their attention on Dec 20th a full 11 days before my stay and the final billing for this period and could have had them reverse the charge. I was told by Amex wait it will probably correct itself. The Hotel said they always charge in advance during the high season. I am now taking it up with Hilton that they owe me the extra 55,000 since their hotel booked me early. There is nothing in my booking confirmation that they were going to bill me ahead of time. The fact that Amex is splitting hairs on when it was billed vs the fact that it was a Hilton hotel and it was booked with my Amex and it was booked at Hilton.com is crazy, and that I have been with Amex for 17 years. So if you ever get billed in advance for a Hilton stay make the hotel change that or you won't get the extra 11 points. I am hoping Hilton steps up to give me this. I have been Diamond for 14 years and I am about to be Lifetime Diamond sometime next month based on spend. I only need about 20k on base points. Just a couple more stays.

mia

This is not accurate. The paid at checkout rule only applies to incidental charges, not the room rate (see below). Part of the art of working in a customer service job is to invent an explanation for an error which the agent does not understand. This does not mean it is American Express policy. You need to speak directly to someone with the personal authority to fix the problem, not through a front line CSR. At this point I would contact Flyertalk's official Hilton representative https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/memb...mbassador.html to help you navigate this. I would keep the story short, "Property charged my card in advance, and American Express customer service claims that this disqualifies the 11 points/dollar Aspire bonus."

cfischer

Use the chat function. Ask them to 'open a case', this may get you better results than a random supervisor. Make it clear this was directly booked on Hilton.com and charged by the hotel. There are quite a few ones that are miscoded, same with Marriott as well. It can eventually get resolved, but it takes some time. At $5k I would chase the 55k points for a bit.

eponymous_coward

I had this happen for the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas this past summer. It got straightened out for me, but I had to involve AMEX and the Hilton FT Ambassador. Apparently the hotel wasn’t coding their credit card transactions correctly and thus AMEX wasn’t catching them.

serpens

It might be worthwhile to change the thread title to something like "Hilton properties that code improperly" and then add a wiki with a list of such hotels as they get mentioned. In my experience, the Doubletree in York (UK) codes as an ordinary hotel rather than a Hilton property. (To add a wiki, does one choose Create a Wikipost from the Thread Tool dropdown menu and then follow obvious steps? I suggested renaming the thread because the improper coding of the York Doubletree was with a Surpass card rather than Aspire.)