Bondiboy

Scott,

Are you hinting that we should throw you a welcome home party - or was there some other point to your post?

KENNECTED

Agreed. I honestly don't see what all the hype is about, especially if your Diamond.

[email protected]

No smart A _ _ , I was responding to post # 23. The person was not sure if they still take a GLONP @ that Hilton. But thanks for the offer of the party anyway

Scott

derpelikan

i guess hilton analysed the blocked room patterns and found out that mostly the rooms are blocked at high season and other diamonds or golds couldnt get award rooms.

i guess they found out that most of the rooms got cancalled again, so for me its good news as i think that overall availability will go up in peak seasons.

still the approach with booking first, than calling them and telling them that you use another Reward cert still works, so i dont think its a huge change.

you have to have 200K in your account constantly than you dont have a problem

dp

MIKESILV

What a novel idea?

Pretty soon the airlines are going to require you to have all the miles in your account before booking a free ticket.

mike

kymbakitty

Mike:

Certainly, requiring all points to be in your account prior to making a reservation makes "sense."

I think all we are pointing out by this thread is 1) there is a new change in the policy and 2) for those of you that are affected by this change, here is the information.

We can go back and forth whether we supported/appreciated/ridiculed (whatever) the policy in this first place but I don't think that is what is at hand here.

Many of the "perks," unusual or otherwise, may make no difference to me. In that case, I just keep on reading other things that spark my interest. In this case, I do and have (and am currently) utilizing this perk and so it sparked my interest.

We can all agree that it was a very interesting perk to start with....but the OP was really just letting us know that someone (again) has changed in the loyalty program. And I am very happy about that because in this case, it does affect me.

Dawn

KENNECTED

Ahhh thats the grey area. As you mention this is a (supposedly a well known) perk, not a published benefit.

MIKESILV's comment is dead on!

GUWonder

I am wondering when pretty soon is and where that will be applicable.

In most US airline programs in which I participate, I can make a booking for a "free ticket" without all the miles actually in the account. It's just that the booking for a free ticket doesn't get ticketed until the miles are in the account.

However, in the realm of the hotel programs, things usually work differently than they do with the US airlines' programs. For those who still know how to do it, HHonors is still great for making award bookings even when all the points for all the award stays are not in the account.

derpelikan

for most asian and european programs you cant make a reservation without the points in your account.

well at least not for 1year in advance.

maybe 3 days to 3 weeks reservation , but not 1year ...

dp

holtju2

But the hold before ticketing is i.e. from 2 to 14 days with UA and AA. Not like with Marriott where you can hold an award ressie for about a year.

We all have paper certs, don't we?

pitflyer

So to clarify does HH now require you to have the points, but not necessarily redeem them? For example I have 500k points and want to book an GLONP2 in a couple of places, will they actually force me to redeem the certificate (and use the points) upon reservation? Or they just want to make sure I have the points to pay for it and then I can get the e-cert whenever I want?

Bondiboy

Hilton will issue you a "Reward Certificate" as part of the confirmation process. The issue of this certificate (has a unique number which is also linked to your confirmation) will trigger a deduction of the appropriate number of points from your account.

Unused certificates can be "redeposited" in your account

SkiAdcock

When I've booked award stays in the past I did the booking long before I ordered the certificate. I had points in my account & they stayed there until I ordered the reward cert.

Cheers.

pitflyer

Ah. This change does suck then -- used to be two separate steps, book, and then get award certificate. Now the follow up question is-- are there 'redeposit' or cancellation fees if you get an award certificate and then decide you don't want to use it? Marriott charges to redeposit unused certs

SanDiego1K

Hilton has never charged me to redeposit an unused cert - but then again, neither has Marriott.