Herb687

You don't think Starwood plays the exact same shenanigans?

jamesteroh

I think all the hotel chains do.

JAFU007

FIRST, make sure that you are talking to someone at the Diamond Desk. I recently called and thought I was and found out I was not (they route calls when busy) so now I always start with: "Am I speaking with the Diamond Desk?"

Then let them you know you want them to put in the request. My first agent did not want to and I was honest that she could do it or I would call back and find someone else who would. She did it and 5 days later the hotel approved it and Voila - I had it.

Never give up. This is a benefit. Just remind them. If not, try someone else.

Cheers!

craz

If you want your opinion to be heard and Count the DD is No good , call the DD and ask for Customer Relations. Thats what the DD agent told me and transferred me

Had a nice chat with both, my main pt was Can you please tell me why not Only I should remain staying with Hilton but why should I Requalify as a Diamond/ what is the difference now going forward between a Diamond and a Gold and I have no reason to be a Gold, Basically they couldnt! and agreed with me its a Dumb move

I told them as having top status with UA I have special inventory available to me that a non 1K doesnt, that doesnt mean there will Always be a flight I can cash in for at the Saver level but they never have told me well Mr Caz you can cash in 2x the # of miles and get an Anytime Tkt or Mr Craz you can get a 1st class saver tkt, which is what Hilton is now telling me. I said If I wanted to cash in for a better room thats 1 thing, but Diamond was special simply knowing the Force if needed was there , now with that gone so will I be. I cant see 1 reason why to remain with Hilton and be Diamond when Gold will get me the samethings, why should I spend the extra $$$ and Nights with Hilton, there was no answer and she said if enough call up and complain they may have no choice but to go back to what was

rsgrauer

What else I don't understand is how we can be guaranteed a room if we book it 48 hours in advance but the request can take 5 to 7 business days. Shouldn't we be able to also "force" the decision within 48 hours?

sjuhawk_jd

I guess the "red tape" will move quickly if you reservation dates are within 48 hours and move "slowly" if not!

jamesteroh

I was always under the impression the property took a huge hit on a reward stay and only got a few dollars on a reward stay from Hilton. If that is the case, I am surprised Hilton is able to force a franchise to give up rooms when the property is able to get rack rates

trueblu

Very true, and HH was the only programme offering this for reward stays...which is (was?) a great benefit. It's logical that it wasn't financially feasible for them, and those bailing to other programmes won't find this benefit there (but they may find other perks HH doesn't offer, e.g. suite upgrades at SPG).

I do agree though that this was by far the main differentiator between gold and diamond, and as such, makes the incentive to achieve the latter much less.

As a minor anecdote: called up to make a one-night reservation, told the hotel was sold out. Asked for a special request, was put on hold and was suggested to book at a nearby hilton family property which had availability. Now, I knew this beforehand, and wasn't too bothered which one I preferred - just wanted to test the 'force' issue for myself. I didn't push since I didn't feel strongly, and just took the alternative, but it certainly seems at the very least that the DD is reluctant to put through these requests now.

tb

mnredfox

Reward compensation to the hotel depends on occupancy (search on this). So when the occupancy is high, the hotel gets rack rates anyway. No loss to them.

beltway

satori has now blogged the story, with a link to this thread.

Rebelyell

Yes, but there is a difference between what that passenger was doing and creating fake suite reservations in order to force a hotel to quit breaching their contract and do what they are contractually obligated to do for the benefit of the third-party beneficiaries, i.e. we folks.

mnredfox

Ok, it's official (for me at least). I called the DD, who transferred me to corporate Guest Assistance. They then called the DSR desk to confirm this.

The answer is yes, info here is correct. If a property is participating in offering what HH's calls "extended rewards" (premium rooms, suites etc) and for a specific date is offering those extended rooms for reward redemption, even if the std rooms are not available for reward redemption you CANNOT do a DSR.

At the end of the call, I simply asked the Guest Assistance person to pass my high dissatisfaction up to mgmt. No apology, no thank you for loyalty, just "I will."

to Hilton. Time for to fire off some emails to the diamond desk and hilton corporate for this negative change. I don't think I'm going for diamond anymore.

What are the emails to send?

DD is [email protected], or is it [email protected] (my archives show this is Diamond Special Services)
FT is [email protected] (is it still Cynthia)?

Does HHR respond to anything?

Any others? Goto website to complain?

soy

this is a huge devaluation. All diamonds should register their disgust. With this change there is no difference between the loyal diamond customer and those who get free gold via one of the many offers. The mind boggles at the logic that hilton are using on this one

GUWonder

This certainly is one way for a hotel "loyalty" program operator to burn some of its programs' big account balance customers so that such customers either end up burning far more points for far less in return or not burning their points at all.

to Hilton for gutting one of the only Hilton Diamond benefits that really differentiated Hilton Diamond status from Hilton Gold status.

Not all hotel chains do. Increasingly Hilton is becoming to US hotel "loyalty" program customers what Delta Airlines already is to US airline "loyalty" program customers.

azepine00

After rapid deterioration of HH a few years back i thought things have stabilized but clearly they are determined to continue killing the program.

Ironically while other loyalty programs struggle with getting hotels to offer loyalty benefits, HH itself is trying to screw its members while the few hotels I've been to this year were rather nice to diamonds.