little_dc

It is a very arrogant hotel and is over rated. You are right the Garden View is a 2nd tier room and in Feb is going to 222,000 - 321,000 points per night. FAIL!

Terrace View.. less than a hand full of rooms. This hotel takes pride is working the system and hates free nights.

Most nights the price difference between Terrace and garden is like $20 but over 120,000 more. Something is majorly wrong here.

If Hilton wants to have tiered reward levels they need to be like Marriott and Starwood and have a published scale that hotels follow for upgraded rooms with points.

MNHunter

Yep, the GW is the worst offender but unfortunately the Conrad Bora Bora is playing the same tricks!

I stayed at the GW in 2016 and while the pools are nice I'm not jumping at the bit to stay there again.

Would really like to see something done about GW and Conrad BB.

hugolover

I cannot find a single standard room award at WA Amsterdam. Seems a bit odd considering they should have two rooms per night, which means they have 100% occupancy for the next 730 worth of nights. At midnight local time, I was looking at October 16th, and while it was bookable there were no Deluxe rooms...

One might have the silly idea they are just not selling those rooms except via some consolidator, group bookings .

HHR can you help?

eethan

Lauren, any update on Hilton Chongqing?

IMO, if Hilton wants to keep it's hotels honest , they need to penalize individual hotels for bad behavior.

MNHunter

Conrad Bora Bora: King Lagoon View Suite available almost every day in 2018. 0, repeat, 0 days available with points at the standard rate in ALL OF 2018.

Lauren, how is this allowed?

little_dc

It is allowed because Hilton has LOST TOTAL CONTROL of the program. They are moving to be a virtual hotel company with little or no control over hotel standards and the Hilton Honors program.

They do not want to lose owners because they are yelled out for being greedy.

The other thing that we need to keep pointing out is what is a standard room!!! Putting a robe in the room doesn't make it a premium room. Yet many hotels play this game. To cut down an standard rewards they put a coffee maker or a robe in the room and call it deluxe. This is BS and keeps getting worse!

hugolover

I don't disagree with the general ethos of your post but there is a huge difference based on geographical regions. In Poland, only two properties are corporate managed and I can't say one property play with the rules when it comes to reward reservations. You're far more likely to see this in Hilton's backyard and one of the more developed or greedy countries.

There are two signatories to every contract and Hilton's behaviour in these cases highlighted here suggest that they really don't feel they have the upper hand in the product they offer. Franchisees should be reminded that being part of the Hilton brand is of a huge benefit to their hotels and that Hilton are a compelling chain to be a part of. It strikes me a bit gimme gimme gimme, with no obligations to go with it.

OTOH, reading the Trafalgar thread today, it seems that hotel does the absolute minimum that is completely out of kilter with the rest of the London hotels. A complimentary breakfast with upsell to full and one category upgrade only. We have a lot of choice in London, and despite that hotels good location I would rather stay in a hotel that has a good record of suite upgrades and full breakfast than a hotel who clearly holds their Diamond guests as an obligation to provide favour, rather than a pleasure to reward loyalty. Hilton has given us a huge amount of choice in London and new properties being added all the time (Despite Brexit!), with hotels desperate to catch corporate business.

You begin to wonder if Hilton actually believe they offer anything better than Marriott, IHG and the brand is so utterly weak they can't even make the hotels respect the rules cos once contract renewal comes up they will scoot off to another brand. They've been badly burned in some markets, France comes to mind.

Any management student knows that if you fail to enforce your brand standards, your brand goes down the toilet, Hilton have been doing this for years. The DT brand dump in the UK shows they are trying to deal with it, but its rather late.

eethan

Has anyone actually been helped by @HonorsRepresentative? Just want to know if we're wasting our time. I happened to call Honors and brought up this flagrant case - rep stated she would discuss with her manager and call me back in 2 days. Broken promise.

We're all caught up by hilton's fancy marketing - thinking we're elite and all. But in truth, at least I can say that hilton cares less about my business.

Expect all this to get worse. With dynamic pricing, there are no award charts now. Hotels can charge whatever they want, or not offer any awards throughout the whole year. I'm trying to burn my hilton points, if only I could!

For my coming trip, everything else is set. Can't wait any longer for Hilton to correctly offer an award night. Looks bad when I keep my travel agent waiting to hear which hotel to deliver my tickets. Also need to arrange airport chauffeur to the JW Marriott...

jerry a. laska

Did you read back in the thread. See this post from two weeks ago:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/28917017-post26.html
If nothing changed as she stated have you tried to PM her?

Java Titan

@HonorsRepresentative, I'd like to book a reward night with points at DoubleTree at Chongqing Nan'an on 11/20/2017. They have the basic KING GUEST ROOM for booking with RMB, but not available for using points. Could you help me with the booking?
Thank you very much.

MNHunter

Still no word from @HonorsRepresentative concerning the Conrad Bora Bora not having any points availability on any day in 2018 yet they sell base rooms for cash

Hilton Honors Ambassador

Thanks for raising this. Conrad Bora Bora is an extremely popular redemption hotel and standard accommodations often sell out quickly. While a limited number of rooms are sold as Standard Room Rewards, the majority of accommodations at this property are premium suites and villas which are available to book as Premium Room Rewards.

Thank you,
Lauren

MNHunter

I appreciate the response and I understand it is a popular property. My point is they are selling the base room for cash and thus should be making those same rooms available for points unless I�m misunderstanding the Honors program. If they didn�t have any base rooms available for cash I️ would understand there not being any points availability. Shouldn�t a base room (in the case of Conrad BB a garden view king room) that is available for cash be available for standard points award?

retiredfromhilton

Lauren's corporate speak none response speaks volumes.

The bottom line is that hotels are not required to designate an entire class of similar rooms - such as 'a garden view king room' as 'standard rewards'. They may designate garden view king rooms of a particular size or a particular location within the property as 'standard' while designating all of their other rooms and suites as 'premium'. You may regard this as 'capacity control'. So long as any room that you can book with money you can book for points - even if it's a lot of points - it is hard to argue that Hilton Honors isn't standing by the letter of their undertaking to make reward rooms available with no black out dates.

So far as I am aware, the sole official exception to that undertaking is rooms made available under the Diamond Member 48 hour guarantee. When they are available for cash, they are not available for points.

That said, I have a hunch that some hotel groups in China may not be playing by the rule book. The ones I have in mind routinely opt out of promotions, etc with Hilton's blessing. Competition for properties in China is so fierce that hotel owners can more or less dictate their terms before agreeing to a franchise or management contract.

(Somebody just reminded me that there may also have been a property in Mexico that recently took itself out of Hilton Honors altogether. But that same somebody wasn't able to tell me where things now stand with that hotel.)

retiredfromhilton

Lauren's corporate speak non-response speaks volumes.

The bottom line is that hotels are not required to designate an entire class of similar rooms - such as 'a garden view king room' as 'standard rewards'. They may designate garden view king rooms of a particular size or a particular location within the property as 'standard' while designating all of their other rooms and suites as 'premium'. You may regard this as 'capacity control'. So long as any room that you can book with money you can book for points - even if it's a lot of points - it is hard to argue that Hilton Honors isn't standing by the letter of their undertaking to make reward rooms available with no black out dates.

So far as I am aware, the sole official exception to that undertaking is rooms made available under the Diamond Member 48 hour guarantee. When they are available for cash, they are not available for points.

That said, I have a hunch that some hotel groups in China may not be playing by the rule book. The ones I have in mind routinely opt out of promotions, etc with Hilton's blessing. Competition for properties in China is so fierce that hotel owners can more or less dictate their terms before agreeing to a franchise or management contract.

(Somebody just reminded me that there may also have been a property in Mexico that recently took itself out of Hilton Honors altogether. But that same somebody wasn't able to tell me where things now stand with that hotel.)