Premium Room Reward only at certain properties - Major Devaluation of HH points
Jan 9, 2012, 11:29 am
#781
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: LAX
Posts: 10,909
ZSure - hilton kuhio and hhv in HNL (the latter had discounted rates briefly but now it's appfoaching 6 digits). Several AZ properties - don't recall which ones but they came up in my search recently.
Jan 9, 2012, 11:48 am
#782
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: MEM
Programs: DL DM, Marriott/Starwood Plat
Posts: 441
I have been looking at a night in HNL tacked onto an OGG trip. I haven't booked yet, but I was able to get to step 4/5 for a 50k point standard room award at HHV on 4/10.
Jan 9, 2012, 1:09 pm
#783
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: LAX
Posts: 10,909
The premium room bait and switch will be more prominent with room rates high enough (either due to location/property or high demand). When you really hope to use your points (perhaps with diamond force) and where we've been able to find the best value - well, often it's no longer there and that's the whole idea of this scam.
Jan 9, 2012, 3:29 pm
#784
FlyerTalk Evangelist & Ambassador: China
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: DEN
Programs: DL DM/MM, UA 1K, AA Exp, HH Dia, WOH Glob, IHG Plat, Marriott Gold, NA EE, Hertz PC
Posts: 17,423
In due time this will spread is my prediction. Right now they are only doing it to the best hotels, really the ones we mostly care about using our pts at.
Jan 10, 2012, 2:24 pm
#785
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: BWI, DCA, IAD
Programs: SWA A-List Preferred & CP, Delta Diamond, HH Diamond Hyatt Diamond
Posts: 553
Premium Room Rewards are a laugher
Not going to mention the property, but I just looked into booking a room on points for a couple nights at a resort type property out west. For the EXACT same dates as last year (210,000 points for 3 nights) the same identical room this year is 193,000 points PER NIGHT.
What a great program!
What a great program!
Jan 10, 2012, 2:38 pm
#786
Join Date: Oct 2010
Programs: HHonors Diamond, DL PM
Posts: 123
What gets me is they are basically saying they don't want people to have award stays. The people who have those kind of points are not dumb enough to spend that amount.
I guess their hope is pretty soon we won't have any other choice. Glad I got rid of all my points when I did.
I guess their hope is pretty soon we won't have any other choice. Glad I got rid of all my points when I did.
Jan 10, 2012, 2:39 pm
#787
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: 10^7 mm from Ȱ
Programs: Hyatt D/HHonors D/ SPG P/ Marriott P/ IHG P/ UA 1K/ AA EXP/ DL D
Posts: 1,976
Not going to mention the property, but I just looked into booking a room on points for a couple nights at a resort type property out west. For the EXACT same dates as last year (210,000 points for 3 nights) the same identical room this year is 193,000 points PER NIGHT.
What a great program!
What a great program!
Just be aware of an email from HHonors sitting in your Junk box asking you to provide testimonial to the program...
Last edited by lewende; Jan 10, 2012 at 7:13 pm Reason: Adding a quote
Jan 10, 2012, 6:17 pm
#788
FlyerTalk Evangelist & Ambassador: China
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: DEN
Programs: DL DM/MM, UA 1K, AA Exp, HH Dia, WOH Glob, IHG Plat, Marriott Gold, NA EE, Hertz PC
Posts: 17,423
Not going to mention the property, but I just looked into booking a room on points for a couple nights at a resort type property out west. For the EXACT same dates as last year (210,000 points for 3 nights) the same identical room this year is 193,000 points PER NIGHT.
What a great program!
What a great program!
Jan 10, 2012, 7:06 pm
#789
Join Date: Sep 2010
Posts: 116
I think my biggest frustration with this whole thing is the uncertainty...At least before I could look up a hotel, find its category, and say, "Okay, I can maybe go there in a year", now I don't know if I'm saving points for nothing. The property I really want to hit in late 2012 is currently not subject to this crap on the dates im looking at, but who knows what it will say in six months....so I'm struggling whether to gamble another 60 nights on Hilton this year or pull the ripcord and leave.
Jan 11, 2012, 1:48 am
#790
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Nashville, TN - BNA
Programs: Hilton Gold, WN RR
Posts: 1,818
+1. I'm really aggravated at what will effectively be the loss of GLON and AXON - which are currently the reason I'm paying inflated prices for airport Hampton Inns, in either dollars or HH points.
I'm going to downgrade to Gold this year and start switching stays to Marriott. The ONLY thing keeping me from bailing entirely are Marriott's high stay requirements to earn elite status, and the fact that Hilton is the devil I know.
However, we'll see how it goes at Marriott. This devaluation plus the loss of WN has me re-evaluating things.
I'm going to downgrade to Gold this year and start switching stays to Marriott. The ONLY thing keeping me from bailing entirely are Marriott's high stay requirements to earn elite status, and the fact that Hilton is the devil I know.
However, we'll see how it goes at Marriott. This devaluation plus the loss of WN has me re-evaluating things.
Jan 11, 2012, 8:57 pm
#791
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: IAH
Programs: OnePass Platinum, Hhonors Diamond, Avis Preferred Select
Posts: 38
I just tried to book the Hilton Sydney where the standard reward goes for 50K points. Nothing was available except room for more than 190K a night! What a joke! I'm going to consider staying somewhere else in my future.
Jan 12, 2012, 9:16 am
#793
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Nashville, TN - BNA
Programs: Hilton Gold, WN RR
Posts: 1,818
Iffy. Hilton treats paid stays and reward stays as two entirely different things. You might luck out on an individual hotel basis, but I wouldn't count on doing that as a longterm strategy (I've been told by the Diamond Desk before that I couldn't book a stay as a reward but I could pay cash for it.)
Jan 12, 2012, 12:08 pm
#794
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: SAV
Programs: HHonors: Diamond, DL: Plat
Posts: 244
I am OK with this until the end of January. I have actually been saving a ton of points over the past month using the premium reward rate with the 30% kickback of points. I was able to book a few HGI rooms for 12k points after 30% kickback as they listed the premium rooms at 17k points (even though the "standard" reward was still being listed at 30k points!).
There is definitely an IT glitch in the way these premium rewards are working. Take advantage of it while you still can!
There is definitely an IT glitch in the way these premium rewards are working. Take advantage of it while you still can!
Jan 12, 2012, 2:19 pm
#795
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: On strike
Posts: 8,135
What was the "best available rate" for the premium rooms in question? Without that information, all we know is that the premium reward rate was better than the standard award, which leaves open the possibility that one was merely a poor value & the other was absolutely awful WRT cents-per-point yield.