Now that's a loyalty program!
 

I've been working in NYC for well over 18 months, hotels the whole time. Mostly *wood (sorry), hit plat forver ago and have been upgraded exactly once since.

Made hhonors gold last week, checked into the hilton times square today and was upgraded to a suite!! :D was i just lucky or is being gold really so special as to deserve all this??

no matter how i got it, thank you hilton for the uber hook up!

luck
 

hi i think that starwood is 10x better in case of upgrades than hilton. sure sometimes you have to ask for the supervisor if they do not offer a suite upgrade, but this year i had great deals with starwoods hotels.

an upgrade to a suite with hilton... dont expect this to happen too many times..

dp

See, I disagree.

*Wood Platinum may be better than Hilton Diamond ('Course, you need a lot more stays/nights for the former)... but Hilton Gold kicks Starwood Gold's arse, man. :)

I agree. This does not happened all the time

^

Starwood Gold barely has an arse...

I was a Silver Hilton member for ages and never noticed any benefit and then somehow I got comped to Gold and it's been brilliant. Since then I've been staying at Hilton religiously and have earned Gold "legitimately" (and I'm quietly hoping that whoever comped me to Gold as a Silver will comp me to Diamond as a Gold!).

But anyway, the upgrades have been great and I've had alot of personal service and individual recognition. I can't imagine how Diamond could be much better than Gold since Gold is so fantastic. :) :)

I have been a Gold member for a couple of years and have received upgrades about 90% of the time so I am very happy. The lounges in Europe especially are great and the free drinks are very welcome :)

Hopefully will be at diamond status in early 2006 so will be interesting to see what the difference is - but even Gold is great for me

3timesalady - congrats on Gold and the upgrade. only problem - I'm going to humming Lionel Richie during my meetings today! :D

Wait until you want an award stay and, officially, there's no availability. So, you call the Diamind desk and, hey! waddy'a know? We've got a room for you!

platinu
 

as the op is a SPG Platinum and he is now a hilton gold, i compred plat to hilton diamond.

even as a diamond in hilton program you almost never get a suite upgrade.

hh gold vs. spg gold sure the hilton gold is much better but spg platinum with the suite upgrades is in my eyes one of the best things spg offers.

i got only one suite upgrade as a diamond (which was at the conrad tokyo...)

so i still say, SPG plat is better than HH diamond for suite upgrades.

i agree that hh gold is better than spg gold , which means nothing.

dp

I concur with derpelikan. I got more upgrade with my SPG Platinum than Hilton Diamond. Starwood upgrades me to suites half of the time, Hilton upgrade me to suites less than 20%.
Hilton’s Diamond’s strength is not the suite upgrade, but the guarantee complimentary breakfast.

Depends very much on where you stay. As Gold I got suite upgrade more than half the time, as Diamond I get suite upgrade very nearly every time (at hotels with suites).

Gold vs Silver
 

Oh I miss the Gold days so much! Back in those days stayed in the ATH Hilton and got lounge access and fell in love with the hotel. Have two more rewards stays coming up at the ATH Hilton this month, one booked while Gold (kindly asking for upgrade/lounge access in the comments) and one booked after I was downgraded to Silver. In my first stay I was treated as Silver (lobby csr totally ignored my Gold card and "went by" the computer system...but hotel was fully booked).

I intend to try it out again with my Gold card and be super nice but I am not hopeful. I don't care for the upgrade, I just want the lounge access!

Oh the good old days...One thing for sure,the free Gold made me a loyal Hilton customer!

PS - I'm a girl, not a guy. 3x a girl, to be precise ;)

Indeed -- the Diamond Desk just sent me my "special arrangement" confirmation for one night at the Conrad Jupiters on New Year's Eve, even though every major chain hotel at Surfers Paradise (including the Conrad!) is pretty much sold out. Outstanding service! ^ ^ ^

P.S. Congrats on Gold, 3timesalady!