xooz

If the above is true and standard rooms exist but are not for some reason available on Hilton.Com, one could book a "standard" room with the hotel, then call HH to change it to an award stay? Maybe..??

mnredfox

Doubtful, I tried this in the past and it didn't work. Doubt it would work now. But worth a try nonetheless.

jeanie

I have scanned through all 20 pages of this thread and still have a question about something. The last time I booked a reward room with Hilton was back in March. At the time, I had to log into HH to see reward availability. It was my understanding that this was in part because availability was different for the various elite levels. I am not talking about the force here.

AA does this for ExPlts. Anyone can check award availability without logging into AA.com. But if an ExPlt logs in he/she will see additional award seats that are not available to plts, golds, or regular members.

So does HH still have a greater supply of standard award rooms for Diamonds without having to use a force, or has that benefit gone away as well?

I am reading on this board that there is really no significant difference between Gold and Diamond anymore. If this is the case, then it would be a better strategy for me to move more nights to another chain like Marriott. I will probably requalify for Diamond this year, and then start of fresh with MR next year.

Thanks.

Guava

When using points, if a reward room is not available after logged in as a Diamond, you will see a message with a phone number asking you to call the Diamond Desk. The message will also tell you that Diamond Force is not available online. Diamond Force is a fairly manual process, however, it has happened to me several times that as soon as the case is manually submitted by the Diamond Desk, I immediately receive a confirmation e-mail from the hotel within 2 minutes. They usually tell you to wait a week but it is almost never that long. When hotels are paid full rack rate by HHonors, it is not surprising that some of them are happy to confirm you a room on points.

jeanie

Post removed - no longer relevent

jeanie

For those who are interested, here is my response from HH regarding the increased availability for Diamond members.


"I do apologize that I did not fully address your concerns in my previous response.

Our hotels do still have additional inventory for our Diamond members. To determine if additional rooms are available it will be necessary to enter your HHonors account number and PIN so the system sees your status is Diamond.

Please note this does not guarantee the hotel will always have additional rooms as there will be times when all standard inventory as well as the Diamond inventory will be totally booked. If this is the case please contact the Diamond Desk for assistance."


So there is still a difference between award availability for Diamonds and Golds even though the Diamond force is limited now.

jasonvr

I have never seen it stated or printed anywhere that there is additional award availability for Diamonds except for the Diamond Forces (DSR). On the airlines it is a published benefit for the top tier elites (EXP, 1K, etc).

I actually find it hard to believe since HHonors terms state that if a standard room is available, it can be redeemed for an award regardless of status level. The only way for there to be additional availability for Diamonds would be for them to reserve reward availability on non-standard rooms specifically for Diamonds at the standard rate which does not seem to occur (especially with the advent of premium room rewards)

3Cforme

I recently booked, and stayed at, properties where the confirmation indicated it was a Diamond-only redemption when other types were not available - at standard rates, without requesting DSR. So yes, it does occur.

jasonvr

Was it a standard room? If it was, that would seem to violate the HHonors terms. Unless they are removing a certain number of standard rooms from the inventory for sale and reserving them for award redemption by Diamonds...

Edit: I just looked at my recent award redemptions and both say something about Diamond Reward, but I'm pretty sure that both had regular award availability for anyone to book.

little_dc

I'm very irritated with Hilton regarding this... I have contacted HH a few times via email with no response. I got screwed again the other day trying to book a reward at the Hilton Malta. When no standard rewards showed up, I called the Diamond desk... and was told they could not because there was in fact a free room for over 400,000 points. ;(

I posted about it here on my blog

beltway

I agree that Diamond force is being gutted.

However, in your blog post you also say this:I just checked a few properties at random & still see the category listed conspicuously on the property home page. Can you indicate which hotels have removed it?

little_dc

It looks like mostly International hotels, have removed it.

beltway

I don't mean to sidetrack the thread, but a random check of Hilton properties in Paris, Munich, Moscow, Sao Paulo, Dublin, Cairo, and New Delhi shows no such removal of category information. I suspect you're looking at something other than the hotel homepage.

jasonvr

Examples? I just checked every property in Spain, Germany, France, Romania, China, Istanbul, and London. The only ones that didn't have their category right on the front page are the WAs and Conrads (which I don't think ever had their category on the front page). There were also some properties that hadn't joined Hilton yet so they didn't have a category (lots of those in China).

little_dc

Let me put your suspect to rest, here are some hotels without the reward rate on the front page.

http://www1.hilton.com/en_US/hi/hote...1312490476651&

http://www1.hilton.com/en_US/hi/hote...1312490476651&

http://www1.hilton.com/en_US/hi/hote...1312490476651&

http://www1.hilton.com/en_US/hi/hote...1312490476651&

http://www1.hilton.com/en_US/hi/hote...1312490476651&

Happy clicking