pretzlaff

Just finished a not great Hilton stay at the Munich Hilton City. Got to thinking when was the last great stay that I had with them. Can’t remember. This year we have stayed at the Hiltons in Munich (City), BCN, Evian, AMS Airport, and MAD. None were very good. The lounges were not good. Didn’t go more than one night to most of them. No suite upgrades. These hotels are simply not worth their high prices given the lack of decent benefits, let alone the lack of housekeeping, toiletries, and breakfast quality.

I am not sure we have had a good stay since Covid-times. I remember really great experiences at Prague Old Town, Budapest Castle, Macau Conrad, and Sydney back in 2018-19. Something is wrong. Am I staying at worse places? Are there still good ones out there? There simply is no joy in a Hilton stay any more.

hugolover

Could you post your comments on Evian in the thread? I’d be interested to read it.

the810

Out of curiosity, which of those hotels removed it? I was under the impression that all the properties in Europe still do daily housekeeping as a brand standard (and all those I've stayed at this year do).

ChinaShrek

It's interesting that all of your stays have been in Europe. I thought Hiltons were better internationally than in the United States. It seems that Hilton doesn't care about service as much as they used to. I think it is best to avoid full service Hiltons and Doubletrees in the United States (and maybe in Europe) but a lot of the mid-tier hotels are still decent. I have had many good stays at Hampton Inns, Embassy Suites, and HGIs since Covid. If you want nice lounges and upgrades, I would look elsewhere.

pretzlaff

Hugolover—. Post #206

Hilton Evian-Les-Bains {FRA} (France)

pretzlaff

The810—. To be fair about housekeeping, I can’t remember specifically about these european hotels and am probably conflating this complaint with some US stays. Also, a couple of these stays were only one night. Still, I get surprised when our room is actually cleaned, and I shouldn’t.

Mostly, my rant is about lounges and upgrades and the hope to say “wow”. The whole package just seems poor over the last few years.

aww3583

I actively avoid the upper tiers of the Hilton family because the costs simply don’t match the benefits. Twice weekly housekeeping, closed lounges, zero upgrades, skyrocketing food pricing, etc. are all signs that the relentless pursuit of profit has hit all facets of the industry.

Hamptons and, to an extent, HGIs are where the best bang for your buck is. I visited one of my mainstay HGIs this week and they’ve eliminated the made-to-order breakfast. Instead, they have the unmistakable Hampton reconstituted eggs, link sausage, and prepackaged muffins. At least they kept the cost to $10 so it was covered by the F&B credit.

I stayed at my first H2S this week. For $160/night you get every-5th-day housekeeping, prepackaged microwave breakfasts, a broken toilet, paper thin walls, and no complementary water bottles.

I keep a list of favorite Hamptons and I routinely go back to them on work trips. That’s where the value is in the Hilton family.

:D!

Surprised about Munich, but other than that I think the ones in the first list were never that great, and the ones in the second list have always been better, covid or not

arlflyer

This. OP is basically comparing a list of largely boring European business / airport hotels to prime leisure and high-end properties. Of course the changes since COVID haven't helped anything, but that wouldn't have been a fair comparison in 2019 either.

est-gratuite

If you want "wow" in your Hilton Honors stays you need to go to east asia.

(This goes for most major hotel chains by the way)

MichaelA380

Apparently you are - or there is something wrong with your expecations.
My last stay was in Hilton Mallorca Galatzo and was amazing.
The one before was at Hilton San Francisco Financial District and was crap - but that is also what I expected, it just suited my purpose.

craigthemif

I have certainly noticed that Hilton hotels in Europe are pricing at a premium to nearby hotels - major chain or not - in a way that I know from prior experience is not warranted.

So rather than complain about mediocre Hilton stays, I've found myself (as a Diamond member earned the old fashioned way - albeit with COVID-era help) with no Hilton stays in the last year...

Concerto

Totally agree with all of this. It seems that they want to leave the prices where they are at a high level and let rooms go unoccupied if necessary, rather than reduce the prices. I personally have stopped staying at Hilton properties because they mostly don't exist where I need to go and they're too expensive.

Grey Nomad

I'm moving away from the higher brands too. They are just not worth the money any more.

DLATL777

These large brand products-Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt Regency etc have largely become massive churn properties. Many are 500+ room behemoths who dont really need to worry about quality as they get it in quantity. A lot of these rooms are also filled by sites like Hotwire, airline overbooks, points bookers, etc. If youre running 75%+ occupancy and getting away with marginal food/service its unfortunately never going to benefit the consumer.

The top tier properties to me are ok-its the mid (and massive ones) I avoid like the Plague.