Hilton Honors E-check in, A waste of time!
 

Hilton Honers E-check in, A waste of time:
I did the match, after 13 times a ' e-check-inn ' I did get the worse rooms ever and everything time the same response from the front-office at the hotels. "Sorry Sir, You did a E-check in and we have give you the best room.....but I did get a worse room and no upgrade!
My advice as Diamond member: Skip this and do you check in at the hotel front-office in person as Elite member.

Gr Diamond Member for a long time.

I find I like it just fine. I also think most upgrades are fairly superfluous as a single traveler; do I really need a Presidential Suite if it's just me? I've been fine with the room choices I have been presented as a Gold.

(FWIW, I also book a lot of HGIs/Hampton Inns, so it's not like I'd be getting a Presidential Suite in those hotels.)

Concur... when I'm by myself, a suite is just more space in which to forget stuff.

Try the Presidential Suite (really) at the Urbandale, Iowa, HGI :) A very nice upgrade!

My gripe with e-check in is with how slow the app/digital key is.

My experiences so far have been good, however I only e check in if preupgraded, I also quite like the digital key option....seems to work ok ( in the UK )

......forgot to mention, whenever I've requested my digital key on the morning of the stay ahead I've always received it around lunchtime......is this the norm?

I believe you get it once the previous guest has checked out and the room has been cleaned.... I never bother with it....

Hilton e-check-in is actually really good much of the time. While some properties don't give you access to upgraded room inventory, many do.

What is the worst room? 1st Floor? High Floor? Next to the Ice Maker? Far from the Elevator?

Every time I've used the e-check in, I've been given the room I selected. If the room sucked, that's on me for selecting it.

I have pretty much quit using e-check in. It seems every time lately I am only offered a room with two queen beds on a low floor near the elevator. My profile preference is high floor, away from elevator and I book rooms with a king bed, not 2 queens. When I show up in person I end up with the room type and location I reserved in the first place.

Here's my strategy:

1. Look at the reservation and see if it was upgraded. If so, look at the floor plan to select a room.

2. No change in room status. Wait until check-in or call.

3. Digital key with the message the hotel possibility. Do it every time.

I'm staying at a MIA property with messaging and got a great room assignment, digital key and every thing I need

Yep....my strategy too!

Can I just check what step 3 entails? Do you do an online checkin but message requesting upgrade?

I use the digital key when available. When arriving the property the check-in line was going to be 30 minutes (after flight delay and waiting 1 hour for the shuttle) so I just went to the room without stopping at the desk. Make sure bluetooth is on for it to work.

The message option is nice to communicate with the hotel and for the MIA property my flight was going to be late and I had them hold my room. Never used the message option about requesting an upgrade but guess you could. I did message to ask why my corner top floor room had been changed and was advised I had been moved to a suite. :-)

OP seems to not understand the Hilton e-checkin. Like OLCI on airlines, you can actually choose your room. If you are not happy with its location, remember you picked it yourself on an usually fairly accurate floor plan.
To checked if you are upgraded, do e-checkin the day of arrival, not the eve as upgrades usually clear during the night. And it does save time at arrival to do it. As far as I am concerned, Hilton e-checkin is a successful implementation of the concept and a real useful feature.

Try the Accor echeckin, which is really useless: no room choice, well nothing actually, you just click a few buttons. Then at arrival you redo the whole thing.

At this point, my conclusion on OLCI is that I don't know what to make of it anymore.
I've been burned for using it and burned for not using it.

The app says "don't worry. check in now and we'll do our best to upgrade you when you get here."
I used to be skeptical about that comment.
These days I think it's the property that's BS'ing when they tell you 'sorry, we can't upgrade you because you already OLCI'd.'

I would never check in on the app if I have not been upgraded.

Simples!

Maybe I have been lucky - last 4 stays checked in on the app day before - picked a room I "liked" with the standard "we will upgrade if possible" comment - and each time have been upgraded either at check-in or have had a text from the hotel prior to check-in (usually early morning) saying have been upgraded. NB This is in the UK at Hiltons & Doubletrees.

I was once denied an upgrade upon check in because I had already done OLCI. I just took that at face value when it happened; but after the stay a friend told me that was nonsense (the property is clearly able to make amendments on their system). So I wrote in to Hilton Honors, who confirmed that that should not have happened, and the property proceeded to email back apologising for the incident and offering 20k Honors points as a gesture of goodwill.

A FDC told me the same thing once. Then a week later, a FDC at the same property told me that I didn't get the room I OLCI to, because OLCI only guarantees a room type, not a specific room.

I am pretty new at this and this is exactly what I did for my most recent stays. I was upgraded upon check in at the desk in person each time.