imniclas

Yes but if I get a confirmation, stating they days etc. and I can not see anything about 12 months expire day, how could I then know that it's not a valid reservation?

Where does everybody get the strict 12 months expire date from??

EasternTraveler

I can't understand your post. A time machine? All reservations are made for the FUTURE!!!

whimike

What error message?! The website let me book over a year out and there were no error messages or trickery to do so.

You state the reason it might not be honored is because of the devaluation. I know with Starwood the hotel is reimbursed based on a formula that has no bearing on how many points it takes to book the room. How sure are you that Hilton pays the hotel based on the amount of points the room booking required?

As I have stated before, there are a plethora of examples of where bookings over a year out were honored and where HHonors replied to people stating that bookings over a year out will be honored. What experience can you show where people were refused their room upon check-in?

Hilton is bound by US law. I have a confirmed reservation. Nowhere does it state that it is invalid if booked over 12 months out. If I have already paid for flights and show up at a property where I am declined a room, I would pay for the room then take Hilton to court once I return. It doesn't get much simpler than this for a clear-cut court case.

spleuchan

What US law are you quoting? Its similar if you book a government or AAA rate. If you book and when you get there they ask and you don't have a valid government or AAA ID, they will then charge you rack rates. If you book saying you are going to use a valid certificate, it needs to be valid when you check in.

As others have mentioned, you may get lucky and they accept the expired cert. Or, they might not. It depends on how much of a gamble you want to take.

whimike

I don't recall quoting any US law. Care to show me where I did?

Are you joking? It isn't similar, at all, to booking a government rate. Booking a government rate comes with a stated requirement, on the reservation confirmation, that you must be a government employee and you have to show government ID upon check-in. My reservation confirmation doesn't state, anywhere, that it is not valid due to being booked over 1-year out (anywhere, including in the T&C of Hilton linked to in the reservation), and the reservation being "confirmed" and stating the booking is valid for the time period stated in the reservation is all the proof I need to feel comfortable from a legal perspective.

Ultimately, it comes down to, how is the consumer supposed to know there is a 12-month expiration on the Reward Certificate? Hilton doesn't send out an actual Reward Certificate for people to be able to read it. It doesn't state this anywhere online. Without disclosure of such a potentially material fact, Hilton couldn't enforce such an expiration.

Happy

You need to read the post I replied to - the poster said someone has already stayed on the future booking - what he actually referred to, was someone has had more than 12 months out booking made in 2012 and got hotel email to confirm it.

The plethora examples the poster cited, are 2012 examples.

It worked for the 2012 booking, but last year we did not have big devaluation like this year. That to me, could be a deal breaker if hotel does not get the proper reimbursement.

Good for him to get ready to sue if the hotel not honors the booking.

Come to think about it, if they are not worried at all and are 100% sure it would stick, why even bother to keep harping on this topic on those of us who voice caution? Just go the merry way to enjoy life and report back the "I told you so" triumphant stories. Why waste time to keep refuting the Nay-Sayers? Because they themselves want the ghost echo of reassurance just to make themselves feel better. Such a human nature ...

azepine00

While perhaps your risk tolerance is high and you are willing to take chances and potentially go to court, it is irresponsible to provide this one sided point of view to others. We don't really have a lot of examples: i saw one with hotel confirming the reservation and another recent one with CKS rejecting it. As we witnessed in RGN round 3 thread travel providers may be willing to say no to questionable bookings and people had to pay quite a bit in out of pocket expenses.
If you want to try - go for it but until we get enough datapoints i would advice folks heading to destinations with limited alternatives to contact hotel and reconfirm before making any nonrefundable plans.
YMMV - potentially very expensive YMMV.

whimike

The whole point of this forum is to provide points of view, opinions, etc... I am providing a counterpoint to those posters that claim the sky is falling and the room won't be honored. If somebody is unsure then certainly they can confirm with the property/Hilton that their reservation will be honored, which several have done, and apart for this one with CKS, all that have done so, and posted on FT, have been reassured that the reservation will be honored.

Now booking a hotel room, at stated correct rates, is compared to the Rangoon Round 3 where "according to Swiss" less than 1% of the correct airfare was paid. Swiss's defense was that it was 3rd party providers that made errors, with the Hilton bookings it was done directly with Hilton. Really apples and oranges.

The only potential defense by Hilton is that the room award cert (apparently) has a 12-month expiration date. I can't find anywhere online where it states that the electronic award certificate has a 12-month expiry. Not in my reservation, not in the T&C, nowhere. How is the customer expected to understand and comply with a completely unpublished expiry date? Would you be fine going to a hotel to check in and they say, sorry, we now have a 30-day expiry date and you booked over 45 days ago. If there is an expiry date it needs to be put in full view for customers to make informed decisions.

imniclas

^

nittany987

I think this, combined with a note from the hotel stating that they will honor the reservation, makes this a pretty clear cut outcome.

As a side note, I will be staying at the CM on points booked >365 days out as part of a honeymoon trip. I emailed the hotel, got confirmation that they would honor the booking and was offered the upgraded rooms. When I elected one, I noticed that a separate reservation is now showing in my HH account. This reservation is for 8 days and shows the upgrade room (vs. 2 AXON awards in std. villa). I am supremely confident that this will be honored. If not, then I'll pay up and file via small-claims. I can't see any wriggle room here, given that I booked directly with an HHonors agent on the phone (no trickery) and have an email stating they will honor the reservation.

travelinfoo

Actually you may have a problem. Your situation is completely different from ppl booking the GLON & standard awards. I'm not sure how you managed to make a booking with an AXON for >365 days. But the AXON does have a 12 month expiration date which printed right on the certificate. You will have an INVALID payment method.

The GLON & standard awards have no stated expiration date on the certifcates themselves.

It is no different than booking with a credit card that will expire before your date of arrival. You must have a valid certificate which you won't have. So your form of payment will not be accepted. The hotel may honor your booking but they don't have to honor an expired certificate. I believe you will have to find another form of payment or come up with UNEXPIRED awards tocover your stay.

You also will not have any legal standing as your payment method (AXON certs) is not valid. Again it's like expecting them to honor an expired credit card and then suing because they won't take it. Won't fly because they won't get paid.

azepine00

I hope you are right. If not - its gonna be a very expensive lesson for some. Good luck.

nittany987

Except... They didn't send me any certificate, as I believe happens frequently because they are attached directly to the reservation...

I'd like to see the explanation of HHonors trying to explain why the agent allowed me to make a booking with what would be an expired certificate. Seems like a beyond inane argument: "Well, we didn't send him a certificate, but that's what we use internally. And even though our agents made him a reservation more than 365 days away, the certificate is only good for 365 days. While he would have no way of knowing this, the responsibility rests on him to pay the room rate."

Edit - I want to say I remember seeing somewhere that this has happened before, and HH just renews the certificate.

travelinfoo

Actually, you are wrong about HH renewing AXON certificates automatically. It doesn't happen. You have to cancel and remake the reservation. Once they are past the expiration date, they are dead and no longer accepted as payment. If you can find documentation of otherwise, please post it.

The regular and former GLON awards had internal expiration dates of 1 yr and were re-issued when this passed to cover the bookings of > 1 yr. GLONS and standard awards stopped sending out separate award certificates prb a year or so ago. This has NEVER been the case with AXONs which have a completely different procedure.

AXONs have a clearly stated expiration date of EXACTLY one year from when you request them printed on them. AXON certificates ARE sent to you. You should recheck your emails. The AXONs awards are the ONLY certificates that are still emailed to you. The actual certificate is emailed along with the reservation confirmation. When you make your reservation booking, you get 2 emails sent at the same time: a one with your AXON certificate with the clearly stated expiration date and a second one with the booking details.

I just made an AXON booking on March 27, immediately before the devaluation. I am looking at both my AXON certificate AND my reservation confirmation emails.

If you made 2 AXONs, your certificates will NOT be good after 12 months from the date you made the reservation. The hotel will NOT accept your expired certificates because they will not be paid. Also were you explicit in telling them you had an AXON award? It makes a difference.

The agent made the booking because you had the points and the AXON was good at the time you made the booking. However, as we all know, not all agents know all the nuances of the HHonors certificates. The agent you worked with may not be aware of the AXON 1 yr expiration date. However, as you have the AXON certificate with the clearly stated expiration date, you KNOW it will not be any good when you stay comes around.

As I suggested before, recheck your emails. If you ordered an AXON, you have the emailed certificate. You can always ask to have it resent to you if you cannot find it. But the onus is on YOU to use it properly, i.e., before the expiration date.

If you are NOT using AXONs, then you should have no problems.

nittany987

Thanks for helping me straighten this out in my mind - Much appreciated ^

I had to look at another email account and did actually see the AXON certificates were emailed with the 12 month expiration which puts me S.O.L.

Also, the examples I thought I remembered about auto-renewing the certificates were in fact for GLON awards, not AXON, so you're right on.

When I sent the note to the hotel, I just mentioned that it was an award booking, not specifically an AXON-type, so once again, thanks for the heads up.

Before I go any further, I have three thoughts.
1) Why in the world were the AXON awards treated differently than the others?
2) Why wasn't the booking agent aware of the potential issue?
3) I should have just booked the GLON award...

Resolution:

So after researching this thing further, I put a call in to HHonors and was transferred to the diamond desk (who I presume is the most capable at handling these issues) and asked them to help me verify what was happening. They confirmed that my reservation was beyond the valid dates of the AXON awards I had redeemed. After a lengthy hold, I was told that my best course of action was to call back 365 days out and ask them to reconfirm it (and I suppose 'reset the clock' on the certificates). I asked if this was a standard thing, or if it was going to be a crapshoot and up to an agent's discretion. At this point, they said "I don't know" and sent me to a supervisor.

The supervisor didn't seem to be very aware of the AXON certificates, but nevertheless said he was opening a case to request that HHonors member services work with the HHonors desk to get the certificate extended and absorb any potential increase in points required. He indicated that it was an issue with their agents for allowing a reservation >1yr with expiring certificates and offered an apology for the hassle of getting this cleared up. ^

I got an email from the supervisor along with the case number, so I'm feeling better about this now.

Please forgive the length of this post, but wanted to accurately reflect the process that I went through in case it should prove helpful to anyone else out there in a similar situation.