RoadWarrior707

I submitted an initial claim using the online form last Saturday (my first ever attempt at a BRG); received a denial on Tuesday using what appears to be standard template language; submitted a follow-up email using screenshots on Tuesday; and received a 2nd denial today (Sunday).

My follow-up email included screen shots from hotels.com, expedia.com, and travelocity.com all showing the exact similar reservation in all respects...2 persons, same checkin/checkout, same room type, same cancellation policies, taxes, etc.

Today's denial came as follows. What is not stated in the T&C of the BRG website, and now being claimed, is you need to click through all of the steps to make a comparable reservation up to the final screen!

"Thank you for your email response. The screen shot has been reviewed and it does not provide the necessary information to approve the claim. In order to verify the booking terms and conditions the screen shot has to be in the final booking screen and display the rate, room type, cancellation policy and a date and time stamp. The book option has to be selected to go to the next booking screen. I regret to inform you that we are unable to honor your Best Rate claim without being able to validate all the information..."

In reading previous entries, this incident confirms my initial thought that the process is a violation of Federal Trade Commission rules regarding consumer protection.

Has anyone filed a complaint with the FTC? The link is:

http://www.ftc.gov/faq/consumer-prot...-complaint-ftc

Please post your experience if you have done this (or PM me). Thanks.

--a disgruntled Hilton Gold member

stevekoe

I am in the same boat. I submitted a claim. They denied the claim. I immediately replied with the requested information and have now waited five days with no response. I went ahead and booked a second room at the property to prove that the rate was bookable, in addition to the screenshots that were requested.

Five days seems like an exceptionally long time to wait for a response that should come within 24 hours. My experience with Hilton Hhonors has been very good over the last few years, but this is souring me on our relationship to some extent.

comper

I had this last week. Found a rate Ł10 cheaper on booking.com for a night at the Hilton in Southampton. Booked direct with Hilton and submitted my claim. Email saying they could not find the rate, I took a screenshot of the rate showing the same room, date and conditions. Sent last Friday morning and am yet to hear anything back.

Pretty poor customer service.

stevekoe

Well, I am not exactly sure what happened, but after six days, my appeal of my denial was approved.

Yesterday, I resubmitted all of my documentation (again) and did not hear anything back from the BRG people.

Today, on the advice of another FTer, I sent a PM to HHonorsRepresentative. Within an hour of sending that message, my appeal was approved. Now, I don't know that these two things have anything to do with one another because I never got a message back from HHonorsRepresentative, either. I just got an email saying that they were matching the competing rate and they would send me my $50 Amex card 7-10 days after the completion of my stay.

While I am pleased that the matter of the rate was eventually handled, I am not pleased with either the time frame involved or the lack of communication from Hilton Hhonors. All they need to do is send me an email telling me that they are working to verify the information that I sent, and I would happily wait patiently for a decision.

uxb

Yesterday, I finally had a BRG claim approved on my first attempt. No tricks or games. That never happens w/ Hilton. They even built the $50,- discount into the rate instead of making me wait like a moron for an AMEX GC. I was left amazed. Of course, I'll be taking advantage of an AMEX discount that gives $50,- off $250 spend at Hilton, which will bring down the room rate at the Hilton Stockholm to $100,-/night. Not bad at all.

comper

I finally got a reply to my follow up email with screenshots of a cheaper rate on booking.com...

"You must find a lower publicly available rate (“Lower Rate”) on a non-Hilton Worldwide booking channel (except for "opaque" websites) for the Same Accommodations. "Same Accommodations" means the same room type, at the same hotel, with the same dates and length of stay, same number of guests same designation as either cancellable or non-cancellable, same advance purchase policies, and the same terms and conditions governing the room rate."

This is exactally what I found and sent into Hilton. But it's still been denied. I honestly can't be bothered to follow this up again, but in future if I do find a different rate I won't exclusively use Hilton.com. It has also opened my eyes to low rates at other quality hotels on the likes of booking.com and has saved me a small fortune by booking another hotel as opposed to the Hilton on a forthcoming trip to Adelaide.

banffflyr

My appeal has now hit day 4 with no response. Worse still, the prices have changed on my comparison websites, so even though I submitted screenshots I am fearing that I will be denied simply through no fault of my own. Erin, why should HH members have to pay the price for delays that are out of our control?

Established1985

Short question: I used the BRG for the first time. I got matched with the lower rate from hotelreservierung.de as a reply by the hilton team. Their Mail says that i should receive a new updated confirmation by mail.

Problem is: I didnt receive a new confirmation and the reservation does still show up with the old and much higher rate ;( There response for the approved claim was 24h ago, so i am wonfering a bit. The stay is in 7 days

thanks for any advice

Axel

Gagravarr

On Wednesday night I submitted a BRG for the Hilton Garden Inn Queens/JFK Airport for late March, when I found it for $119 on several sites including booking.com, vs $189 on hilton.com (both prices excluding tax).

This morning, 36 hours later, I got the BRG confirmed, along with a message about how it took >24 hours when it shouldn't have:

This is my first US BRG, so rather than dropping the rate by another $50, they're apparently going to internationally fedex a $50 gift card to me in the UK, for which I'll need to sign on arrival. In some ways, it might be good if you could pick between the gift card or the rate drop, but as I've got the cheaper rate via Hilton and I'll have a gift card to spend on another trip to the states, I can't complain too much!

banffflyr

Good for you, but this highlights the ridiculous contradiction of emailing the BRG people vs submitting a claim. Your claim was approved effectively because the BRG desk took +24 hours to respond. Fair enough. However I am now into day 5 of my email appeal with no response, and with my comparable rates now having changed (yes I submitted screenshots, but have little optimism about their worth).

Why does the BRG desk have different standards for replying to an email than they have for replying to the BRG form? Erin, this is obviously a concern for more than just me.

jwitherington

You can add me to the list of customers who received a quick denial to the BRG claim form but have been waiting several days on a response after screenshots were submitted for follow up. From reading this thread, it seems like the default is to deny the claim, request screenshots, and then stall. I'm new to HHonors and it seems like we're starting off on the wrong foot.

Hilton Honors Ambassador

Hi banffflyr,

I will share your experience with the larger team during our next call and will keep up updated with any feedback I receive!

Thanks,
Erin

banffflyr

Thanks. I think what a lot of people here want is clarity on whether or not we should be bothering with email follow ups? Right now it is the only way to submit screenshots, so we don't have much of a choice. If the BRG desk had the same (apparent) 24 hour response standard for emails as they do for the form, this would help level the playing field.

FWIW, entering the weekend with still no response. Frustrating.

Gagravarr

Having had a few Hilton BRGs approved (along with a couple of SPG ones, a few IHG ones which are stricter but more valuable, and an Accor one which many consider mythical), I have a few suggestions.

Firstly - not all cheaper rates elsewhere will translate into a successful BRG. It's frustrating, it's annoying, it's not what the program suggests, not what the marketing suggests, but sadly that's the case right now. (Possibly someone with some time, patience and living in a country with strong consumer protections could help, but it'd be an unhill battle). Assume that about half the lower rates you spot will be impossible to BRG against, and assume that at least some "T&C valid" BRGs will fail

Next up - read those T&Cs very very carefully! Then read them again, and remember that each chain is different. Take care on things like currency (does the website's currency have to match the hotel's?), taxes, breakfasts, cancellation times, flexibility, could the website somehow be considered "private" or "opaque" in any way, does the website confirm immediately etc.

Now, if you're sure that your other site not only complies with the spirit of the BRG, but also the full T&Cs (including weasel words), make sure you can cope if the BRG is denied. This works better for refundable rates, and for chains like Starwood where you can submit the claim before booking. Take screenshots, note down URLs, and for sites with non-persistent URLs make note of the steps to get from the homepage to the lower rate.

Finally, assume that the person reading your BRG will be overworked, behind on their targets, but honest. Think about why they might mistakenly reject it, such as they can't easily get the rate up (give them the steps!), or the bed names matches (this site says standard, this one queen, beds and rooms must be different), and give explanations of why that isn't the case (eg explain that this hotel has queen beds as their standard bed). For IHG, where you get a free night not just a discount, try even harder to get everything to match as the bar is that might higher.

In an ideal world, you'd ring a freephone number, get through immediately to someone, quickly explain how you'd found a hotel breaking the rules, they'd tap tap tap and verify, wouldn't say "that hotel charges USD 200, you've found it for GBP 50, even though that's way way lower it's the wrong currency so tough no BRG", wouldn't say "our rate allows cancellations until 6pm, that site only until 4pm, no BRG", wouldn't say "our rate is without breakfast for $120, that site is with breakfast for $100, F&B element so no BRG" or anything like that (all real examples I've had!), but that's sadly how things are right now...

brooding

Hi Erin, I was hoping you could help me in this instance where I claimed a BRG, but it was denied with the agent claiming that the comparison OTA was "opaque" or used "vouchers". I have successfully claimed a BRG using www.hotelopia.com before and I can confirm it is a non voucher site.

The OTA site offers same cancellation terms as the hilton best available rate, and it is much cheaper. It is for the Hilton Doha for 26-27 Mar 2015 (1 night). The rate booked is 1,100 QAR. The OTA rate is ~755 QAR and is still available today. The BRG response is below. I replied again to their response to query it however I have not had a response in 72 hours. I'm seeking your intervention for a resolution.

Looking at this thread there has been a lot of slow responses lately. I do hope you can help resolve the situation.

I also sent a separate email to the Hotel (Hilton Doha) just to request that they would match the rate. They emailed back to me to say just book with the OTA! Wow!

Thanks,
brooding

BRG Response follows:

Thank you for taking the time to submit Our Best Rates Guarantee claim for your stay at our Hilton Doha. I have carefully reviewed your reservation and the information about the lower rate on your claim. The website www.hotelopia.com does not guarantee the booking at the property until a confirmation e-mail and voucher is sent.

The Terms and Conditions of Our Best Rates Guaranteed program state:
You must find a lower publicly available rate (“Lower Rate”) on a non-Hilton Worldwide booking channel (except for "opaque" websites) for the Same Accommodations. "Same Accommodations" means the same room type, at the same hotel, with the same dates and length of stay, same number of guests, same designation as either cancellable or non-cancellable, same advance purchase policies, and the same terms and conditions governing the room rate.
Our Guarantee does not apply to the following:
Rates available on "opaque" websites where the hotel brand and specific hotel are not known until the booking is made (e.g., Priceline.com, Hotwire.com).

I regret to inform you that we are unable to approve this claim. Hotelopia does not confirm the rate and booking immediately; thus, making the website opaque.

Should you require further assistance please reply to this e-mail. Please note that we attempt to answer all e-mails within 72 business hours. We realize that every guest has a choice when traveling and we thank you for making Hilton portfolio of hotels your choice. We look forward to the opportunity to serve your future travel needs.