Work around needed for amending reservation (shorter stay)
 

Booked a 4 night stay at the Hilton KL back in March.

King Exec with Club Access for 35 000 points per night.

Our travel plans have changed and now we are spending the first night at the Doubletree in Johru Baru before training it to KL.

when I went to modify the booking the King Exec rooms were not available, only base rooms at 24 000 points per night.

Hang on a minute I already have 4 nights booked why can I not just modify the reservation down to 3 nights.

Hotel told me to ctc Hilton Honors - Hilton Honors said no can do.

So at the moment the booking has a notation saying we are arriving on the 2nd night, and I have been told that I just have to lose the 35 000 points for the first night or rebook at 24 000 points for a base room, we really wanted access to club.

So my question is - to the Brains Trust - is there a way to fix this mess, or do I just suck it up, use up the rest of my points and move my buseinss away from Hilton.

I only signed up in 2014 prior to a European trip where we had a couple of stays in Hiltons - so its no biggie to jump ship, but I would have thought Hilton would have been more understanding and done something to keep a member.

Thanks in advance for the advice

never had any trouble making similar changes with IHG, Carlson or other chains, but never tried with Hilton...
I could imagine it has to do with their new system that calculates the point value for premium rooms based on the current cash rates...
If you want lounge access, have you checked the Doubletree KLCC? It has a nice lounge with views of Petronas Towers...

Hilton corporate can't help, but the porperty can, so I'd be pushing them.

Otherwise, if you have diamond status certainly, I'd switch the room type.

In KL, on points, I would usually go for the DoubleTree at 10k though.

+1 for the Doubletree KL. No reason to stay elsewhere when using points in KL.

I had a similar issue with Hilton Garden In Mong Kok/HKG. I needed to check-out 1 day earlier. I called the property in advance and agent tried to amend the reservation but no success. A supervisor told me that early check-out was OK for this reservation and that the hotel would arrange for a refund of the HH points for the unused nights. Supervisor told me that notes would be in my reservation. At the end it worked out fine. No issues at early check-out and some days later I received a refund of the HH points.

I would call the property again and insist that hotel staff deal with it. Hilton Honors will not be able to help you.

Not sure why you would jump ship over this. Do you expect:
1. To be able to skip the first leg of a multi-leg flight trip and get refunded for it?
2. Make a car reservation for 7 days, then want to change to 6 and get a partial refund?

Rates change and most require you to rebook at the current rates. The only option (IMO) is to suck it up and eat the loss since your plans changed, or cancel and see if the Exec Room opens back up at the same rate. However, it might not, and you'll be stuck with the lower room.

+1 - What OP wants is to change the reservation. That means repricing at current levels. Do do otherwise would encourage people to book the cheap rate for the maximum possible length which may be needed and to preserve the rate later.

Not to suggest that an individual property won't do this for you, but it's not to be expected.

... which is why you book multiple one-night stays - assuming they are all priced the same - when you aren't fully sure of your plans.

Fifth night free wouldn't even apply to the OP's premium room booking.

Well I have not been a Hilton member for very long, I purchased some points at a good price, did two stays in Europe, Florence and Venice, happy with what we got.

This reservation was the bulk of our existing points - if Hilton is going to be difficult to deal with I would be happier dumping the brand and going back to IHG where I usually stay.

We have always stayed at the IC in KL just wanted to use these points due to lack of longevity.

Your suggestion about a multi leg flight is just that - very different situation.

A car rental reservation would normally charge you for the time you had the veh rather than the times on the original reservation.

But I got your intolerance with me over this matter - I appreciate your feedback

Its not really a matter of repricing at 35 000 points per night - my issue is that if I cancel and rebook which is what Hilton wanted me to do, is that that room category is no longer available, and while most people would appreciate the saving of 35000 to 24 000 points per night that is not the issue.

I already hold a reservation I just want the same room for 1 night less.

As an ex travel agent I see nil issues with this request, however I am now considering taking my business elsewhere if Hilton does not want to be customer focused.

Now that is the most helpful bit of advice in this thread, will adopt that strategy for next time.

We were fully sure of our plans when we made that reservation, But our flight to Singapore was rescheduled - now arriving into SIN at midnight does not allow us to do a same day connection onto KUL - so we are staying at a Hilton property at JB and onto KUL the next day.

Its not as if Hilton as a brand is missing out on our business

As other posters have pointed out, you should contact the Hilton KL directly and see if they would refund your points for the night not stayed. Or exchange them for on property credit so at least it's not a total lost.

If arriving SIN at midnight, and you still plan on making the trip over the causeway, might as well just take a midnight bus into KL ? Some have sleeper seats and you'll still arrive early morning.

Appreciate the suggestion of a night bus - but we are going to do the trip by train, which could be fun...

Train used to be fun but the tracks are in a pathetic condition and is a bumpy super uncomfy longish journey for the distance with limited scenery.

Whilst i disagree with hotel practise of repricing as cancel+rebook, what most uneducated/unknowlegable guests think is a simple modify of a booking, you can often prevent hotels gouging you by booking separate nights, remembering (though unlikely) hotel could be unhelpful and move your room each night

I often book my multi-night stays as 3 bookings with separate bookings for first/last nights in case i will ned to arrive/depart 1night earlier/later. This allows me to drop either first/last night without triggering repricing to the nearly always higher rate in the 7day window before my stay ... and also no issues about rebooking if room/bed type no longer available to reprice.

1. Whether points/ADR/Flex hotel bookings, changing the reservation, whether i)shortening stay b)moving date back/forward is in substance never simply modifying your booking but instead performing an immediate cancel+rebook using new (mostly now higher) nightly rates at that new moment in time

2. Hotels premium award nights are no longer available and canceling yours to rebook will not make them re-available. So yes you often cannot rebook award nights exactly as you are experiencing

3. Two different scenarios for a stay are
i)leaving 1day earlier
ii)arriving 1 day later
and unfortunately only (i) is managable and without risk to booking ie
i)Recommeded approach .. never use HH helpdesks or contact hotel before arrival, but instead during checkin simply state you intend to leave 1day early so can they check you in for 1day less and refund points for last day.
(can sometimes also work for paid flex, but revenue managers can get annoyed as on paid flex, checkin clerks should reprice the whole stay )
ii)Arriving 1 day late .... if you arrive after checkout time next morning , eg 1100 or 1200, hotel may have cancelled you bookings as a noshow, refunding the points for nights 2-4. .....

nb
Really annoying on ADR non-cancel rate, as arriving after midday on day two means no-refund and room cancelled. No different from airlines, hotels rely on overselling and non-arriving guests to boost income.

Incase of a no show as per TnCs Hotel should charge you the BAR for the room booked for the first night and refund all your points..I really cant wrong the hotel here, cancel the entire stay and try and rebook on the day of arrival or use your points at DT KL and buy the lounge access!

I am thinking that I will cancell and go stay at the IC - as their rates are pretty good at the moment - and they have always looked after me as a Spire Elite

Not a happy solution for Hilton also IC lounge is way better than DT or even KL Hilton.

It's a long journey from SIN airport to DT JB, even at midnight, with the immigration stops. I wouldn't be recommending it (even though DT JB is a nice and well priced hotel).

As an ex-travel agent I would have thought you would realise that cancellation and repricing policies are never particularly logical or in the favour of the customer

Changi to DT JB at that hour is under an hour. DT KL am sure is closer to 5 hours. I wouldnt necessarily blame the OP, probably just so happens that the hotel is busy on the days he needs.

Our travel plans changed due to airline schedules so this was out of my control. I would have expected maybe a cancellation fee for the first night but a good provider would have just done it.
I guess HIlton did not consider my patronage important enough .
That's fine they are not the only hotel brand around

Just an update for anyone who was following along.

Due to Mt Agung - our KLM flight to SIN from DPS was cancelled - after much carryone at the airport we finally got put on Singapore which was due to depart 15 mins later - but due to some issues departed much later. We landed in SIN at 0055 and cleared very quickly, at 0105am. Despite sending our driver an email, he was waiting at Terminal 1 when we landed at Terminal 3 - so we just jumped into a taxi and went to Queen Street where we got a cross border taxi. We were at the JB DT at 215am.

We had not been able to purchase the train tickets on line - and the concierge at the JB DT would not assist us, so we gave up on the train, and instead chose to drive. All Europcar would let me do is a 3 day one way rental , so we had a night in Melaka, a night in Penang and a night in KL.

Due to the poor attitude of the Hilton in KL we cancelled the reservation, and had Holiday Inn stays in Melaka and Penang, and IC in KL.

Not sure what we will do with our Hilton points - I guess we will use them, but Hilton as a brand is no where near as good as IHG. We have been treated much better at a Holiday Inn Express than we have at a Hilton.

Hopefully Hilton members will see the light and take their business elsewhere or Hilton as a brand will get it together

Thanks for reporting back! The JB-KL train is suspended at the moment so no direct connections or tickets available. Re Hilton you could be right, have been snooping around spg program lately and the experience seems much better.

I had a 3-night stay booked at the Sydney Hilton. 55,000 points per night.

I needed to trim one night off the front of the reservation, making it a 2-night stay.

Hilton's solution... they wanted 180,000 points per night for a poorer room for the 2-night stay.

At that time, they were selling rooms for something like $400 AU and I was offering to return one to them to potentially increase their revenue. Instead of gratitude, I received abuse.

I ended up keeping the 3-night reservation. Arrived at the hotel at about 10:00 AM on the morning after the first night. Did not have to hassle with early check-in refusal since I already had the room.

BTW... that extra night ended up ensuring that I ended the year with precisely 60 nights for Diamond.

That might explain why we could not buy tickets - it worked out well - we had fun - we explored Melaka which we loved - and Penang which we decided we did not really like any of the resorts we saw - so we wont head there again - and in our short stay in KL we managed to shop and get the items we still had on our list - and have a fantastic dinner at Din Tin Fung, (I had been to Pavillions DTF before but partner had not) so double bonus to discover one in KLCC

^ Though the one at KLCC doesn't serve pork dishes.

Yes I noticed that - as someone who does not eat pork it was not something that concerned me

This is the one downside of Hilton and On Q (I think it's On Q.)

Adding or removing nights etc should not be a massive problem for a hotel but yet Hilton manage it perfectly.