jljones000

My wife is a Diamond member and she was recently booked for a one night stay for business and the hotel cancelled her reservation, telling her they were overbooked. She had to rebook at another property and the only thing the offending hotel offered was to provide points sufficient to cover the difference between their rate and the rate of the Hilton property where she rebooked.

A few days later when she is looking at her business expenses, she notices that the offending hotel charged her for the room. She calls the hotel and they say that they can’t do anything until the manager comes back the next day. Fine, whatever.

So we call Hilton Honors to explain that not only did the property bump a Diamond member, they also charged her for the room and thus far we can’t get a refund and have been offered nothing more than an “I’m sorry” for all these issues.

After multiple rounds of calls to the Honors desk, the supervisor told us that the most they could offer a Diamond member for this type of inconvenience is 5000 points. They said that any other “goodwill gestures” would have to come directly from the offending property.

So is that true? Does the Hilton Honors desk really only have authority to give 5000 points in that situation? If so, what should the offending hotel offer? We’ve been Diamond members for several years and have never ran into anything like this before.

runarbg

I have received much more than that directly from Hilton Honors for problems at hotels. 2 weeks ago they gave me 20,000 points. And 2 years ago I received 80,000 points. That's the most I have received. Both were from the Hilton Honors Twitter support.

DELee

Get in touch with the Hilton Honors Ambassador

David

cblaisd

Which hotel?

corporate-wage-slave

My take on this is that this is only partly correct. What it means in slightly more words is that where Hilton Corporate are trying to get a response out of one their member hotel companies - this is a franchise model mainly - then their central pool of customer service gestures is limited. Or rather self limited. They do internally have various levers to pull to get a hotel company to respond but that won't help you generally. That hotel may or may not treasure your potential future business and thus do more for you than that, and that may explain much bigger customer service gestures. Also I think there is some sort of default where if a hotel goes way out of line Hilton Corporate can force a settlement on the hotel but it probably needs some more than this sort of event, which is tedious but not exactly dreadful.

Now assuming you are eventually made good in terms of refunds and rebooking, then you're getting effectively a US$ 50 or so credit on a future stay. That's for you to analyse as to whether that's a reasonable remedy for the hassle caused. Hilton Corporate can award more, there have been cases where they effectively refunded a full stay in points due to multiple bad things happening, plus there are Be Our Guest certificates very occasionally awarded by Corporate, but that's on another plane to this.

Eujeanie

Re your second paragraph...sounds like you didn't wait/didn't hear from the manager the next day? Went directly to Hilton Honors? I usually try to see what the hotel's response is before escalating.

aww3583

How soon before check-in did the hotel reach out and communicate that the reservation had been cancelled?

Day of check-in? That's a walk and is worth $200 cash and comparable accommodations at no cost. Day before? Week before? Month before?

I'd decline the "points equivalent to the cash difference". The perceived and usable value of HHonors points fluctuates often, and usually downward. I'd want the cash difference.

The charging of the credit card... was it a hold that falls off within 72 hours, or an actual finalized charge? If it was a hold, patience is recommended. If it's a charge, and Hilton and the property have ignored it, charge back and provide relevant documentation.

As for reaching out to Hilton.... phoning the general line isn't the best way to get these types of issues handled. Twitter and the Diamond line are 1A and 1B for me, email is #2. At least Twitter and email create a paper trail.

formeraa

If you can't get resolution from the hotel itself, I would call the credit card company and dispute the charge. Then, deal with Hilton separately.

smmrfld

Agree…need to know when it happened. And don’t bother with phone or email…Twitter DM is best channel.

jljones000

Interesting. You aren’t the only one saying Twitter is the way to go. If we don’t hear back from the property management soon (or get a lackluster response) we may go this route.

Thanks.

I want to give the property manager a chance to make this right before I name and shame. My question was more to find out if the Hilton Honors rep was lying when they said they only have 5000 pt authority, which it sounds like is the case.

I agree that this isn’t a huge deal, but it seems like if you bump a Diamond member at 3pm on the day of stay, you should be ready to cover their new accommodations plus at least a free stay voucher or equivalent points.

We were told by the front desk staff that they didn’t have authority to issue a refund or anything else and we’d need to reach out to management the next day. We weren’t sure if a refund/comp points was something that could be handled through Hilton Honors so we reached out to them directly. I guess we didn’t really see it as escalating so much as trying an alternate route to reach a resolution.

We’ve since left a message for the manager and just sent a follow up email.

She booked a day before the stay and was told they had no space at 3pm, an hour or two before she was going to check in.

My wife had heard something about $200 cash for a day of cancelation but we couldn’t find that written down anywhere. Do you know if there is something buried in the HHonors Terms of Service that we may have missed?

To be honest, we’d be fine with like 70,000 points because that is what a typical night goes for at this property.

With regard to the “Diamond Line”, we looked through the app and never found a dedicated number to call. We’ve always been treated pretty well once we type in our HHonors number because our Diamond status apparently pops onto the CSR’s screen.

Thanks. I can’t imagine we won’t get a refund. It’s more about Hilton Honor’s lack of ability (or desire) to give comp to a Diamond member that gets told to take a walk at 3pm on the day of the reservation.

I knew it! It just seems like such a stupid move to try and nickel and dime the comp to your highest tier members. I honestly thought there would be some hard and fast rule about comp when they cancel your reservation on the day of stay, but we didn’t find anything.

OP here. Manager finally got back with us. Gave the refund and 24,000 points. Not bad, but considering my wife stays there 5 nights a month and we stay their multiple times a year for personal/family trips, it seems like 60K-70K would have been more appropriate as it would basically be covering one night.

Next time we have a problem with HHonors,
sounds like we need to take to Twitter…

jerry a. laska

Threads regarding diamond members being walked:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilt...diamond-6.html
Diamonds are not actually precious to Hilton

Eujeanie

You might be thinking of the Marriott policy, which is very generous and in writing:

Guarantee Details

Ultimate Reservation Guarantee Guaranteed Welcome Gift Guaranteed Room Type Guaranteed Lounge Access 48-Hour Guaranteed Availability

• Silver Elite
• Gold Elite
• Platinum Elite
• Titanium Elite
• Ambassador Elite

If for some reason we’re unable to honor your reservation, we’ll pay for your accommodations that night at a nearby hotel and compensate you for the inconvenience. To be eligible, you must provide your member number when making a reservation. Compensation varies by hotel brand.
Brand Guest Compensation*EDITION®, The Luxury Collection®, W® Hotels, JW Marriott®, Marriott Hotels®, Sheraton®, Delta Hotels®, Le Méridien®, Westin®, Autograph Collection®, Renaissance® Hotels, Tribute Portfolio®, Gaylord Hotels®

$200 USD + 90,000 points

Courtyard®, Four Points®, SpringHill Suites®, Protea Hotels®, Fairfield by Marriott®, AC Hotels®, Aloft®, Moxy® Hotels, Residence Inn®, TownePlace Suites®, Element®

$100 USD (Platinum and Titanium Elite members also receive 90,000 points)

**The Ritz-Carlton®, **Ritz-Carlton Reserve®, **St. Regis®

Titanium Elite and Ambassador Elite members receive:
$200 USD + 140,000 points

jljones000

Interesting. I’m sure that is where the misconception about Hilton’s nonexistent $200 policy comes from.

The Road Goes On Forever

HH/HRCC/DD reps. have more autonomy than 5000 points. Ideally, they want the property to be issuing/buying the points versus something corporate-centric occurring. But that still doesn't mean that they can't issue more, because they can just like it's not uncommon for there not to be a person on property that has the knowledge/access/authority to issue refunds or points even though operationally both are very, very easy to do.

smmrfld

It does indeed exist and I have received it.

Member Relocation and Recovery

1. The guest must be relocated at other Hilton branded hotel if possible. The hotel must pay the full cost of the first night’s stay including any expenses incurred such as transportation and phone calls to family members and business associates.

2. Hotel must complete an online form and send it to Hilton to ensure that the guest receives the stay/night credit and all the points associated with the stay had the guest not been walked.

3. Hotel general manager must follow in writing and and apologize for the incident and and offer an upgrade and/or VIP treatment if the guest returns to the hotel for the rest of his/her stay.

Relocated guests must be offered BEST AVAILABLE accommodations if they return to the property to complete the stay.

Hotel must inform the Guest Assistance about the relocated guests.

4. Diamond member should be the last guest to be walked (relocated). In addition to the above mentioned steps, Diamond member is eligible for $200 inconvenience payment on the spot in cash.

Instead of writing, hotel general manager or manager’s representative must call the Diamond member and apologize for the incident.