Rut Dog

My understanding from the T&C of the promo is that you have to beat the lowest rate on the HH website, i.e. Hotels.com has to beat the pre-paid HH rates.

drjhwang

i'm also wondering what happens if it takes them so long to verify pricing that the competitor's price increases... they're exposing themself to some angry customers.

anyway, here's my experience:
submitted 4 claims on thursday 5 PM
first approval and first rejection received Friday 8 AM
second approval received friday at 2 PM
last claim still pending even though it's the same hotel and rate as the second approval

doctajay

Do you get an e-mail stating you will recieve the $50 check? I submitted a couple of claims and the adjust was made to my reservation price - but nothing else.

azepine00

I have two reservations; both were adjusted but I received only one confirmation email (regarding one stay). It's probably pretty common since they are overloaded checking and changing rates and issuing checks.

drjhwang

what a mess. i finally got a response for the 4th night -- a denial, even though it's the exact same hotel/room type/rate as one that was approved. the customer service agent claimed that i booked a CDD smoking room (as a nonsmoker, i'm pretty sure i would have remembered going out of my way to book a smoking room).

of course, what i mentioned in a previous post has now happened to me. the lower rate on orbitz for that particular date has now disappeared. anyway, i cancelled, rebooked on another night, and resubmitted yet another claim. i wonder how long hilton will continue this promotion?

Altaflyer

You don't HAVE TO email the request, at least as per the rules originally posted by Hilton. The agent I spoke to tried to force me to email and I simply insisted it be done over the phone and it was

drjhwang

I called 1800HILTONS per the Terms & Conditions of the offer, and they had no idea what to do...

Toronto1970

That happened with one of my claims. By the time they got around to review it, Expedia was sold out for that night. Luckily I had taken a screen capture of the rate on the day I found it, and e-mailed it to them as proof. They accepted it and matched the rate.

Altaflyer

I think mine was handled by someone at Guest Services, perhaps a supervisor - not the first agent that answered the phone.

Xyzzy

The only folks who know about this are the ones at Guest Services. When you call the 800 number ask for Guest Services and they can help you.

I just emailed them about the $50 check that should be here by now. They confirmed my lower price, changed my rate, but didn't send me email or a check after my stay.

ddddd1

I was successful after many phone calls and emails. I found that I got MUCH faster response by calling guest assistance.

FYI, it looks like they will fedex the gift check anywhere in the world as long as it is in your profile.

My experience was complicated by the fact that the hotel.com room type wasn't explicit and didn't exactly match the room types on hilton.com. It was hard to figure out which room to book on hilton.com. Be VERY careful with this. It took me quite a few phone calls and emails to fix this.

Finally, I STRONGLY suggest a print out (or a PDF) of the competing website that has the lower rate, as other posters have suggested! I had to sent this to them to get my rate lowered!


[This message has been edited by ddddd1 (edited Dec 19, 2003).]

ddddd1

AMEX gift checks are like travellers checks-- only much less safe

ddddd1

I suspect they are doing this to find bugs in their hotel pricing system. Hilton must be VERY serious about trying to provide the lowest price on the web at hilton.com (maybe to reduce the amount of money they have to pay 3rd party booking engines!).

This might save them more money in the long run. I just thought about the amount of time I had to spend to get the $50, and I am not sure it was that worth it for me.

Tito

I had a terrible experience with this program and with Guest Assitance (GA). I filled in the online form on Dec. 13 for a stay on Dec. 17, and received the standard confirmation of claim via email. I waited until Dec. 16 for a response, and decided I should call GA. The fellow said that he would look after it right away and I would receive a call by noon.

At 2:30, I called GA and was told that my claim was rejected because it was not made 72 hours prior to the stay date. I explained again that I had made an online claim on Dec. 13 and she said the date she had was Dec. 16 (the guy in the morning made a new claim). I was passed to a supervisors's voice mail. At 5:30 I received a voice mail stating that my claim had been approved - but she was referring to the wrong claim for the wrong date at the wrong hotel with the wrong reservation number, all of which were mentioned in the voice mail message!

By this time I am wondering if it is really worth it, and I figured that somehow there system screwed up and they didn't get my online claim.

The next morning, I called again and asked immediately for a supervisor, to which I explained the whole thing again. The supervisor told me to email the confirmation, which I did, but apparently to the wrong email address (which I found out four hours later). I called again, and she then emailed me and told me to respond to her email with the confirmation attached. By this time I am on the road and not plugged in anymore. Later I found out that her email server rejected the email since the address could not accept emails. At this point I gave up, cancelled my reservation (with only two minutes to spare before 6PM hotel local time) and booked somewhere else for the night. I left a voice mail for the supervisor to call me back to explain why I was having so much trouble, but I haven't heard anything.

Guest Assistance, in my experience, is uninformed, unhelpful, and not responsive (no one ever called back within a reasonable amount of time). I suppose that is how they keep the number of approved claims down!

washflyer

Has anyone actually received the 50$ gift check after their stay?