Emick

Yes, they do.

Have seen many times…

You better call!

banana0692

I submitted BRG about 48 hours ago and no answer.

annabe

I've received an approval of my very first BRG claim (lucky me!). I've been asked to update my payment details on my Hilton Honors account and contact them to confirm my reservation. Can anybody advise me about the proper procedure for contacting them? I prefer not to call a US number from Europe, so is it enough to confirm the reservation by replying to the approval email?

Emick

Congrats!

No need to call the US number. Simply dial any Hilton (reservation) number and refer to the confirmation number you have received, and say you were requested by PMG to provide the cc details to confirm.

Very simple.

annabe

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, it has turned out that the provided customer service number for calling from the Czech Republic does not exist and I can't reach any US 1-800-xxx numbers from here. The customer service chat is off and you are advised to call. Pretty frustrating.

Ultimately, I reached out on Facebook and resolved the issue within a couple of minutes.

I'm really happy about the result of my PMG claim, it has saved me about USD 300 a night at the Conrad Las Vegas, so I guess it was worth a bit of hassle!

matio_svk

Use Skype next time Free to call US 1-800 numbers with it and that is exactly how I always have all handled my BPG claims

annabe

I DID use Skype. ;-)

matio_svk

Strange, for BPG claims I call +1-800-445-8667 and as you can see, Skype recognizes it as toll-free (and definetly is, as I called just now)

d

Emick

My latest experience with 1 (!) claim:

1. Attempt (call, 15min): Lady unfriendly and annoyed. Rejected to go via google.com (and from the list of the displayed OTP select bluepillow.com, then it was lower than Hilton, if going directly to bluepillow their rate was higher than Hilton) and simply "Sir, just tell me the name of the page or I will not do the PMG". So I said: "Again, the lower price can be found ONLY if going via google, if you do not want to, thanks & bye".

I guess this is a valuable information as it seems they will no longer go via google / trivago / hotelscombined or any price search machine (since this is the way the final rates may be lower) but will go to the actual page directly. It also clarifies a lot of rejections on the online form where, as I was told, "we don't follow instructions, we just need the name of the final page".

2. Attempt (call, 30min): For the same hotel, found lower rate on booking.com (directly). Lady verified the lower rate however rejected the claim since "non-refundable rate on booking.com is NOT the same the advance purchase on Hilton". Big discussions on the exact T&C (verified and confirmed) but "since the name (!) of the rate is different and therefore not 100% exactly matching, I cannot approve". I thought she was kidding. Unfortunately, she was not...

3. Attempt (call, 45min): All verified, confirmed, at the very end when putting cc details... "beep, beep, beep...". They hung up on me.

4. Attempt (call, 10min): A guy (friendly and assisting) had apparently absolutely no idea about PMG and was convincing me that the process is to connect me with the hotel directly to discuss. Didn't want to hear anything else and hung up on me (or the connection was interrupted when forwarding my call to the hotel).

5. Attempt (call, 25min): Nearly the same as 3. Attempt, but not even managed to the cc details. Hung up on me after the lower price was verified.

6. Attempt (online form - purely from my desperation and despite I swore I will never do it again).

7. Attempt (call, parallel to Attempt 5., 45min): Veeeeeryyyy slowly but finally worked. I was however about to explode when everything was (intentionally?!) checked and asked 3x-4x times with "wait - hold on!" and "let me put you on hold" or "wait, let me look again", especially when putting the cc details. I did expect, he will hang up on me.

3 days later: Rejection on the online form ("lower rate not found").

X-ON

Hilton BRG seems more like window dressing than anything else, Marriott BRG works fairly well for me... I have hundredes of BRG nights with MAR, Hilton seems useless... Instead of these call centers they should have an all online BRG setup like the old SPG BRG while not perfect was at least transparent where cancellation terms was never considered ... call centers seems so outdated

storewanderer

I've had quite a few BRGs approved with Hilton over the years but the process is always very painful. Many of these were one night stays, we are not talking hundreds of dollars in most cases, more like $40 etc. type of differences.

They used to always automatically approve reasonable claims that they did not respond to within 48 hours. It appears that is no longer their policy.

By branding with Hilton, the hotel agrees to have its best available rates at Hilton.com. When this does not happen, there is a breach of their agreement with Hilton. This breach results in a monetary fee to the hotel plus the hotel giving the 25% off the lower rate. Hilton charges hotels a fee for any customer service related contact you make to Hilton Corporate, which BRG is considered an example of.

When a BRG claim is filed the Hilton BRG Agent must take a screen shot of the competing website and attach it to the file/case as support for performing the price match and associated 25% discount. This support can be given to the hotel because the hotel is entitled to justification for why this discount has been given. I suspect many properties do not care and do not look at the support. If a Hilton BRG Agent makes a mistake (for instance- matches your "48 hour cancel cancelable" rate to Expedia's "96 hour cancel cancelable" rate) and the hotel catches that, then Hilton Corporate gets "charged back" by the hotel and they have to eat the discount and pay the hotel back as the rates terms are not like for like. I had something like this happen once that resulted in a billing error where I was billed the extra rather than Hilton corporate. You know how it goes to resolve a billing issue with a Hilton property after you leave the hotel... but eventually I got a nice explanation. The dispute the hotel had with Hilton BRG was over the cancelation terms something about the number of days for cancelation being different for my reservation type than whatever the screen capture the BRG team attached to the claim. I kept my own screen shot of what the lower price website had, and what happened was the Hilton BRG agent screwed up and gave the hotel support for the wrong rate type. My price match was justified and 100% accurate/deserved, but the BRG Agent took the wrong screen capture for the case file when they verified the rate. .

craigthemif

All Hilton needs to do is change the incentive from cash discounts to points (like IHG and partially Marriott) and they would solve most of their problems.

storewanderer

I am confused, there is a web form.
https://www.hilton.com/en/hilton-hon...e/start-claim/

Emick

So... An update on both above items that really pissed me off while dealing with my last claim (it took another 8 days again based obviously on their delaying tactics receiving first absolutely unclear statements - but I didn't give up and requested a clarity, now here we go...):

Hello XXX,

Thank you for your reply regarding your Price Match Guarantee. My name is YYY and I received your email.

For future reference the non cancelable and the non refundable rate is the same thing.

We were able to verify the phone agents can use google to search. However, keep in mind they are not accustomed to doing so. Again, we apologize for the service you received from the phone agent.

in an effort to assist all our guest in a timely manner, this will be our final response in relation to this Price Match Guarantee claim. We appreciate your understanding

I hope you enjoy your stay.

Best regards,

YYY

storewanderer

Contact the HH Ambassador here, or Hilton Executive Assistance.

Unbelievable.

Actually it isn't unbelievable.

My other advice is to take your business elsewhere, but at this point I think I'd go full speed ahead to get the deserved price match especially given that one of the agents confirmed it and was about to finalize it when you got disconnected.