Eujeanie

I have always thought that once you make a request in a reservation, you can't see it again - it says "requests on file". But I recently learned on another thread that you can see the requests you have made at the bottom of your e-mail confirmation. But it also let's you see what requests the Diamond Desk makes without your knowledge on "your behalf".

Every time you redeem a FNC, you have to call to redeem (rather than making the reservation yourself). Since I've now learned how to see what they write, I am appalled and wish they wouldn't! On some of my upcoming reservations it says "Diamond Upgrade Requested!" as if I'm the one demanding this - it comes across as, well, demanding and abrasive. I will, myself, mention a birthday or an anniversary, but I would never, ever put in "Diamond Upgrade Requested!". Yes, with the exclamation point!

I was treated extremely poorly recently at a hotel where we used FNC's, and the smirky FDA kept mentioning that "I asked for an upgrade" when I know I did not...and now I know why.

Please Hilton, please start letting us make our own reservations for the FNC's so we don't have to be at the well-intentioned mercy of someone else. Don't say "what's wrong with requesting an upgrade" - nothing, really, but it shouldn't be written as an edict.

Does anyone know how to change/remove remarks once they are put into the res, how to get past the "remarks on file"?

smmrfld

This is a thread in search of a problem, IMO. Shows that sometimes properties just can’t win.

Eujeanie

It is not the "properties" that are the problem. It is the reservationists. This will cease to be a problem for me because I will make it clear that I do not want any comments whatsoever written in the remarks area, I prefer to do it myself. Which I do for most reservations. But you can't when redeeming the FNC's, you have to have someone make the reservation for you.

storewanderer

Seems like the phone agent was trying to do something nice by requesting an upgrade for you but then the front desk agent ruined it. I think I would have had a conversation with hotel management regarding the front desk agent given that you didn't ask for an upgrade and didn't know the phone agent did that at the time.

Who knows, that phone agent may have been fielding calls from Diamonds complaining they didn't get upgraded. So in an effort to try and eliminate such calls pro-actively, the phone agent took it upon themself to do this "diamond upgrade requested" text in the remarks. I don't think this would have been a problem had the front desk agent not given you an attitude.

Eujeanie

Yes, the reservationists are trying to do a nice thing - that's why I said "well-intentioned" in my first post.

However, the stay with the bad treatment and the nasty FDA, I went and found my old e-mail confirmation, and this is what they wrote...the only thing I asked to be put in there was quiet room. Which they did. Along with, in all caps, saying that "I" asked for an upgrade. No wonder things evolved the way they did.

Here ya go:

Comments & Requests | Additional Information

GUEST WOULD LIKE A COMPLIMENTARY UPGRADE-PLEASE! STAYED HERE BEFO,RE 01/2020-LOVED THAT . QUIET IS IMPORTANT! We are a smoke-free hotel

All I'm saying now is that I will be very careful to make sure to ask that no comments be added.

mbluecpa

Hotel and airline phone agents have been adding comments to reservations, almost always opaque to us, for as long as I can remember. I happened to see “Pls extend all courtesies” in my record on a front desk screen one time and asking what that meant (answer was a shrug).

The “smirky FDA” is certainly a customer service issue here, but more so is the inability to book FNCs online. That would eliminate unnecessary record remarks and more importantly, benefit a whole lot of others.

yakel

Totally agree with this sentiment about this thread. Time to move on to real problems IMHO.

Eujeanie

And I disagree with you. It didn't happen to you. If you care to read my review, go to the Hilton Bentley thread (which is on the first page) and go to Page 439 (near the end). Read the posts after it, too, for follow-ups. If you care to. Or if you just want to think I'm whistling in the wind that's fine, too.

I had no idea why this FDA had such a problem with us UNTIL....and I mean UNTIL....I just now, more than 2 months later, saw what the DD reservationist wrote, making us sound like demanding DYKWIAs.

Those comments, all bolded, should never have been in my reservation without my permission or knowledge. I now know where to look to see them, and I hope this is a warning to others to check once you have to deal with making a reservation by phone, you never know what they're going to say.

The Road Goes On Forever

Those remarks once applied by a Hotel Staff Member/Diamond Desk/HRCC reservationist cannot be removed by the member. The only way you can do this would be to call back and ask for it to be removed or to call the property and ask for them to remove any comments. The comments will still show up for employees to see in the reservation's history, but then they couldn't be actively seen by you.

Also, you can demand-say whatever you want about reservations in the future not having such notations but at the end of the day this isn't something you can control. Unless it's something illegal, immoral, profane, personal attack - notes are allowed to be typed by call center/hotel staff.

FWIW, a reservation made by Bob at the property can easily be tracked back to Bob. A reservation made by "Jimmy" at the 3rd party overseas call center isn't trackable the same way since "Jimmy" isn't his real name and the reservation only says internally that it was made by the call center and not a specific agent at a specific call center. Diamond Desk/HRCC agents sometimes say/do some squirrely things and then the member will call the property demanding/wanting a way to speak with that specific agent and that I'm aware of, it can't be done.

MS02113

Call center agents have been putting notes like this on reservations for the 15+ years I've been staying with Hilton—it's nothing new or out of the ordinary. I don't think you can attribute your South Beach experience to the note, which was clearly written from a reservationist's third-person perspective. It sounds like the front desk agent assigned you whatever room was available when you arrived early and the note didn't really factor into it.

Hawkeyefan

VERY MUCH AGREE that the Amex Free Night Certs need to be self bookable online and not via a phone call. Its the one thing I cannot stand is having to call in time and again to book these. Especially if you need to cancel one and rebook, oops there goes another phone call.

Eujeanie

And this is why we need Hilton to enable us to control making our own FNC reservations, like Marriott does.

I just looked up a reservation I made recently for another future FNC stay - sure enough, another upgrade request! I will usually pick the room type I want, sometimes an upgrade is not an upgrade!

In the Bentley case I reserved a city view studio with a balcony, because I know that room type overlooks the apartments next door (quiet), I wanted a balcony, and wanted them to know we were arriving early off a cruise.

NONE of those things were in the record, except for "quiet", because obviously they ran out of characters after she wrote what she wanted to request "on my behalf", there was no room left for what I wanted!

serpens

Concur.
Are you saying that the "smirky FDA" mentioned in the first post knew (or should have known) that the "GUEST WOULD LIKE A COMPLIMENTARY UPGRADE-PLEASE!" comment had been made by the call center rather than the customer?

The Road Goes On Forever

Yes. It's very easy to see, if you choose to look, how the reservation was made and you can also tell by how the note looks whether it was written directly by the member (i.e. via something done by the app) or internally driven (something made on property or via a call center so it was not directly done by the member).

Eujeanie

No matter how the comments were added, they said "Guest would like" - which clearly implies that I asked for it. And I did not.