Incorrect Info from HH CS?
 

Just called HH CS to clarify why 2 separate reservations at the same hotel only posted as one stay with 2 night credit.
Details: Made a reservation for one night at the said hotel. Made a second reservation for the next consecutive night later in the week as it bacame clear that I would need to spend another night. At check-in, the agent said that she was going to put me in the same room both nights, so no need to check-out and then check back in. I received 2 separate folios from the hotel reflecting 2 separate stays and the rates are different for each night. When I call HH CS to ask why only a single stay was credited to my account, I was told that 2 consecutive nights, even on separate reservations, count as a single stay with a 2 night credit. BS or true?

True. You must physically check out, leave for a night, then check back in if you want credit for both.

If you stay at the same hotel for two consecutive nights, then it counts as ONE stay regardless of whether you check out and check in again or not. This is true whether your booking is one night and another night, or two nights.
I have done this for the same reason a fair few times and it has always been one stay. This is what the Ts & Cs say, unfortunately.

I've always thought it strange that Monday night in the hotel, Tuesday at home, Wednesday and Thursday in the hotel counts as two stays, whereas staying there for all four nights only counts as one stay, but that's what the rules say.
If you can be bothered and if there are enough properties in town, you can have two stays by staying in different properties on consecutive nights. I've found it not worth doing, but many others do it regularly.

To echo everyone else, CS was correct. It counts as one stay.

Sort of along the same lines, getting points when you combine an award stay and a paid stay for the paid portion can be difficult at best.

prominent in the T&Cs
 

A "stay" is defined as the total number of consecutive nights spent at the same hotel, whether or not a guest checks out and checks back in again.

http://hhonors1.hilton.com/en_US/hh/...rual_of_points

From the Hilton Honors terms and conditions:
See also:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilto...ecutive+nights

Actually you received two separate folios reflecting one stay, as previously mentioned per the terms, consecutive nights will be merged into one stay.

Absolutely true. You can read all about it in the page listing the complete Hilton HHonors Terms and Conditions.

Thanks to everyone for the link.
I have difficulty understanding the reasoning behind this policy, however. If I truly wanted or needed the extra stay for qualification purposes, then I would decidely look to staying at some other nearby, cheaper Hilton property thus reducing my overall revenue to Hilton. Am I missing something here?

Quite a few promotions are based on stays and not on nights. Business and leisure travelers are unlikely to hotel hop from night to night. If you are willing to do so, you will likely earn more points and qualify faster.

In the early days of several programs a stay was defined as consecutive nights in the same geography and not just property! Took some tweaking when San Jose, CA was considered the same as San Jose, CR! :)

You need 60 nights or 28 stays to get Diamond status (or 36/16 for Gold). If they counted different reservations and not different stays, they assume (probably correctly IMHO) that people would easily do 16 back-on-back reservations to get their status with as little as 16 paid nights instead of 28. By enforcing a merge of consecutive nights, they assume (not totally correctly IMHO) that people who are for 3 nights in a locale won't do 3 relocations because of the hassle, just to get status.

Maybe some will do to "top up" their stay counter, but they probably decided it was uncommon enough.

Plus, in your example, they'd have one person switching stays (one night in the cheapest Hilton, another in the next cheapest) instead of selling two night in the cheapest : if someone was doing a mattress run, he'd systematically go for the cheaper offer around).