Keyser

i had a booking for next week & wanted to change the hotel i was staying in....i cancelled the reservation this morning but the points did not go back into my account....i waited a few hours & checked again but still hadn't received the points back....

when the points were not back in my account as of this evening then i called hilton....the agent said that he can see the points have been refunded to my account but for some reason they are reflecting as 'pending' on his system so i can't use those points right now....he says i should wait 24 hours & if they are not back in my account then i should call back....

this is extremely frustrating since i need to make a reservation for early next week & now i don't have enough points in my account....also, hilton changes the number of points required for reservations so the points requirement could increase by the time i got my points back from the cancelled reservation....

Keyser

it took 24 hours but the points finally came back into my account this morning....managed to book the reservation with only a 1k points difference from what was available earlier....

serfty

I just needed to cancel an award booking - last time I did this online it took four weeks for the points to be refunded.

This time it took less than 10 minutes.

Interestingly, the cancellation confirmation screen had the following:

:D!

Yes they seem to have fixed the problem sometime in the past 3 months, however as the problem always occurred on weekends or after midnight to early morning US timezones, I will still try to avoid cancelling during those times.

pointmetotheqantaslounge

I very much regret not seeing this thread in the past. Thank you all for your insights. I want others to know of this major Hilton issue as well and learn from my horrible experience!

I made an award booking at the Hilton Waikoloa Village for 6 nights about 8 months ago. My plans kept on changing, and I would just update the stay dates in the app each time - I made a total of maybe 5 updates to the stay. After finding nearly impossible availability at another Hilton property, I decided to cancel the Waikoloa Village stay altogether and was expecting to use the refunded points to quickly book the other property. I cancelled the stay on the website and got a cancellation confirmation number. However, the points refund did not post!!

I spent the next three hours trying multiple HUCA through the phone line and contacting the HHonors desk via online form and Twitter. Apparently by modifying the stay in the Hilton app, it caused some glitch that caused the room reservation to duplicate multiple times on their side. Each time I called the phone agent, they claimed that the reservation was actually for 5 rooms (because I modified it about 5 times). One agent claimed that the system flagged it as fraudulent activity because I made so many updates to my stay, and now my points were being held until further review. They called the property and confirmed the reservation was cancelled and refunded on their side. All they could do was submit tickets, and they told me to wait for 10 business days for resolution. I guess I'm not going on my other vacation then!

I am flabbergasted that a major U.S. loyalty program would have this kind of IT issue and no faster way to resolve customer pleas for help! I don't have much experience with Hilton but am Lifetime Titanium at Hyatt and top-tier with many other hotel programs and have never had this kind of issue. Any other advice you all might offer for me in this situation?

A few lessons I learned through this process and the above thread:
1. As mentioned above, do not cancel your award reservation on the Hilton website, especially after 5pm ET on Friday through Monday morning.
2. Avoid modifying your stay in the app. If possible, just cancel and rebook as a new reservation number.
3. Yahoo e-mail addresses seem to be slow to the get security confirmation code when you call Hilton on evenings...at one point it took 30 minutes for the first security code to reach my email, and I had to stall to keep the agent entertained (because she was particularly helpful, and I thought she could finally get me a resolution).

Hope others don't have the same Hilton reservation experience as I did!!

MD/DC Flyer

Just encountered this problem for the first time. Simple cancellation of point reservations on the app and the point did not go back to the account.

Chatting with a representative - they are under manual "verification" and will be posted in 48 hours. Competly rediculous in this day and age. Adding the fact that the activity does not display canceled point reservation it makes it a hassle to make sure they are indeed credited back to the account.

ats262

Had 2 seperate cancellations of points bookings in the first half of the year with points not returned. After calling in they had to open up a “case” so they could be researched, and the response a week later was neither was a refundable reservation and likely made on a third party site (both made on hilton.com). The researcher clearly made no effort at all. Called in again and a second case was opened. This second time the response was to return the points for one cancellation, and for the other the response was the reservation was cancelled, case closed, and still no points returned with no explanation other than the booking was cancelled. What was disturbing is the phone agents seemed to have no visibility into my points activity, with both agents insisting the points must have been returned because both reservations were showing cancelled, but neither could actually see the points activty for themselves. Been waiting over a week on a third round of research. This should be a simple matter to research and fix. Simple reservation, simple cancellation.

777 global mile hound

Been going on for years (though I haven’t noticed the problem since I complained numerous times )
it’s a highly profitable revenue stream for the company when those members that don’t notice or complain and eventually give up
Some may notice the double standard when they redeem those points they will certainly be pulled without failure.If folks were redeeming and points weren’t deducting I ask you how long would it take the folks at Hilton to fix this?Years? Like when they don’t return the points? lol not!!

serpens

Anyone who cancelled a stay under the Honors Stay Longer and Save rate might want to confirm the refund was processed.

I made a reservation using that rate, which required a deposit for the first night, several months ago. I cancelled almost two months ago (over a month before the required deadline, which was a week before stay) but no refund. I asked someone at Hilton corporate to investigate; that person said give it 30 days. Over two weeks ago (after it had been 30 days since cancel), I again asked for something to happen and have heard nothing--twice.

Oh, and you know the deposit was taken within a day of making the reservation.

I suppose my next step is to dispute the charge?

muzthe42nd

Call the hotel directly. The hotel system will automatically charge a deposit during the nightly audit. It does not automatically refund it when cancelled, unfortunately. It should be completed within three business days by someone at the hotel but due to current staffing it may not be a priority for them. Call and speak to someone directly and they should be able to refund it for you. Calling Hilton central will not help as they don't have access to the payments at the hotel.

serpens

I'm not smart enough to do that cheaply and I'm to cheap to that. Someday I need to learn how to use these internet calling programs, but it hasn't happened yet.

muzthe42nd

Ok.

MD/DC Flyer

Points appeared about 24 hours after the cancelation.

Jaimito Cartero

I canceled a 120k, 5 night booking earlier this week. I decided to switch to a more expensive, pointwise, new property in town. I didn’t quite have the points for both bookings, so kept checking my points total, in the app, and website portal. Took a bit over an hour for the points to refund.

Raylan

I would like to add a data point that the issue of points not immediately returning after canceling an award stay persists. I had to cancel a 2 night, 140k point stay and the points used for that stay were not back into my HHonors account until the morning after I canceled the stay. Ultimately not a big deal in the slightest because it worked itself out, but I did just want to report that this issue persists.