joogle

Hi - I needed some advice on how to have my complaint reach the corporate level or some other department at a higher level.

I booked the following:

1) Three night stay at a hotel in Turkey on Points

2) The fourth night was a standard purchase.


Yesterday, I had both reservations open and I was updating the fourth night purchase to be an Advance Purchase, I was going through the process, but when it completed on the Hilton site, it updated the three night point stay to Advance Purchase.

I called Hilton, they transferred me around, then sent me to the Advance Purchase department, who said they will send a file to the hotel in Turkey to cancel so I can re-book. They saw my situation too, that I had 90K points on the reservation and then it changed yesterday. I had called them immediately once this happened.


I received an e-mail from the hotel revenue manager blatantly refused to refund and cancel. They said that is their policy. I spoke to their Revenue Manager who took up to their Director and they just threw their advance purchase policy on me. I asked them can you change the advance purchase to one night and refund me the rest so this can be corrected, they refused that as well.

I feel so frustrated that this is the type of experience i have had to encounter. It is not like an advance purchase I made weeks ago that I want to cancel. This problem happened on their site where when updating one reservation on final completion it retrieved and updated the other.

It was a simple mistake that I was hoping would be easily corrected. Except the way the hotel is treating me in this manner I feel like being strong armed into giving them money.

I called Guest Relation with the same file number, they requested the hotel again to accommodate this refund and Hilton said they cannot override them.

I told them the Hotel won't do it, just to escalate the issue at Guest Relation so they are aware that this was such poor customer service from the property and that this will dissuade me from choosing Hilton in the future.

I was wondering if anyone here can recommend some feedback/advice on what else I can do so that at least Hilton corporate is aware of this kind of customer service from this hotel.

Thanks!

Often1

Every interaction is logged, so Hilton "corporate" is well aware of what happened here. A decision has been made by the property here to stick to the terms of its rules and you need to move on.

Too late for OP, but keeping two windows open lets "mistakes" such as this occur.

travelinfoo

Geez! I did not know having 2 separate windows with different info open at the same time and making a change on one would affect both windows! Good to know!

joogle

I understand but this is very unprofessional. It's like me buying a $10 item and accidentally handing a $20, then cashier saying too bad I closed the register already, nothing can be done.

A decision has been made by the property for a mistake that happened on the Hilton site, instead of providing customer service to correct it, the bottom line is feeling strong armed where they want to keep the cash and using this policy as a protection.

I'm a gold member and would think this was an easy way to provide resolution, instead with this service, it just leaves a very bad experience.

I would completely have accepted if this was an advance purchase i made and then decided to cancel, their policy would completely apply and i would not have created a fuss.

Thanks

smmrfld

OP, note that you did yourself no favors here. Twice, you've indicated to us that you never intend to stay at a Hilton property again; you've likely said the same thing to Hilton reps. Why would they be motivated to help you?

joogle

To correct a mistake which I indicated to guest relation as well, to explore their relation with this property that I have dealt with so it can be addressed for the future.

I did tell guest relation how do they expect me to continue giving business to Hilton if this is the type of service provided.

Hilton Honors Ambassador

Hi joogle can you PM me your HHonors number, email address, and name? I can investigate for you and perhaps offer more clarification!

Often1

You made a mistake and are then questioning why you should continue to give Hilton your business?

You now have your answer from Hilton.

joogle

I used the term mistake to indicate there was a problem. I did not go in to the reservation and accidentally clicked change to advance purchase then hit submit.

If you open two reservations up at the same time, and modify the first one that was opened, make changes and hit submit, the page fetches the most current reservation ID stored.

During my process the page never reflected the latter reservation code, it is only when i hit submit, once the page refreshed that it showed up.

This wasn't an oops on my part, i never anticipated the system would act that way, i definitely never anticipated my existing session that i am working on to update the other reservation id behind the scenes after it refreshed. As it continuously showed the previous reservation id on the screens.

paul4040

As someone who has handled complaints in the past, someone saying "I'll never use you again" is just a ticket to whoever is dealing with you to say "fine, don't". People who handle complaints are there to recover goodwill. If you explicitly state there's none left and you won't use them again then...




However, the "opening two windows" phenomenon online is well known only by those people who get caught out by it, and by those who work in the industry. It's an easy mistake to make. I would be hopeful that a property could rectify this but getting what you want is all down to a tactful approach. Hopefully they will reconsider.

joogle

I am not sure what if anything can be done, but I've never demanded or been rude to the agents, but have been very polite and professional, all of them agreed with my situation and probably would help, but they run into trouble with the property. The frustration is with the property in that city and their agents who have just refused any sort of help or even middle ground.

aztimm

Instead of having 2 windows/tabs of the same browser, just have one session in Firefox, the other in IE, Chrome, Safari, etc. That will avoid this problem.

joogle

Unfortunately now when I review booking options even with points, no dates are available, and the 4th night I had needed is now at a much higher rate.

I already was having difficulty affording the nights that got converted from points to advance purchase, now i'm even in more difficulty.

This has been one of the worst and stressful experiences dealing with hotel reservations, and now my budget can't support it

This sucks so much.

paul4040

Has the money been debited?

Which country are you from? If you were UK-based and you paid with a credit card you might be able to do what's known as a "chargeback"...

BillyBaloney

There is always the other alternative - "TripAdvisor"

Look up that hotel, see if there are a bunch of phoney reviews saying how great it was. Then post what happened to you.