VA1379

Most hotel reservations are not prepaid. This is why prepaid hotel reservations have a lower rate than standard one which allow you to cancel ahead without penalty.

It seems like MIKESILV is the one who cherry picked the example to fit his argument.

MIKESILV

Thats exactly right .. as a demonstration that although my initial post on this thread was not Intended to fit the "hotel model' exactly one can always find plenty of examples to support (or contradict) ones point of view.

That said I really dont care one way or the other about the HH change but I will bet it came from a significant number of members (or HH would have even bothered) with not enough points in their accounts making quite likely multiple reservations way in advance and then cancelling when they finally decided to stay (or not at all for that matter).

mike

VA1379

As a silver HHonors member, I do not use Hilton as much as the regulars here. I consider the new rule a negative, unless people were hogging rewards (IMO more than 3 at one time for each expected award to use). Time will tell if it gets easier to secure awards after this rule change, assuming Hilton makes the same amount of awards available as before.

I have taken advantage of reserving without points on Marriott, but I only take one award at a time and cancel as soon as my plans change.

Hilton could have made it so that each account would be limited to one award without having all the points in the account, although this would have required extra work to implement.

ExCrew

Agreed, agreed! Better still, they could have at least left this a possibility for Gold/Diamond members. The fact that, even though it was only recently instituted, the Diamond desk is not willing to make even a single exception, has me seriously considering booking away from Hilton. This new policy is a HUGE devaluation to Diamond status.
Again, I am a new Diamond, and so far...I am NOT impressed at ALL!

MIKESILV

Well if you ask me ( considering the hue and cry here ) this change may very well be a nice additional benefit to those Diamonds who actually have stayed in HH properties and accumulated some points, which is not that difficult anyway.

Everybody and his dog got double or triple points by pleading with the DD CSRs for the last promo ( supposedly targetted) plus they all rack up tons of points on their Hilton Amex... even as I post there is link to the right for 50K points to sign for the Amex.

mike

tkegimp

I wish they would sell me a room! You haven't heard of them doing this have you? It is not a bad deal. I tried corporate apartments but missed all the things that Hilton offers. I'll tell you what, the cleaning staff loves me because they go in the room half the time and I haven't even been there. Off at another hotel or even better...home!!

NJUPINTHEAIR

I agree. No more hogging the Cavalieri or other premium hotels with multiple awards for which you don't have the points. This is one change that I agree with!

Moreover, it is no different than Hyatt GP and the FFN promotion. If you have the points, you can park a reward reservation there and then substitute a FFN once it is earned. If not, then too bad.

Marriott still allows you to reserve without the points, but if they were to switch, it would be no sweat off my back -- wife and I have a combined 800,000 plus Marriott points, in addition to 500,000 plus HHonors points.

MileKing

I believe the change is saving HHonors money by reducing the number of “Diamond Redemption” award stays. My understanding is that there are two buckets of award rooms. The first is your standard bucket of award rooms (“HHonors Certificate” award rooms) that is accessible by anyone. The second bucket is the “Diamond Redemption” award room bucket which is only available to Diamonds. (This is not the Diamond force. This is a separate bucket that is used before a force is needed.) Award rooms come out of the standard bucket for all members, including Diamond members, until depleted. Then the Diamond Redemption bucket is opened up to handle any additional requests for award rooms by Diamond members.

The HHonors payment to hotels for the standard HHonors Certificate redemptions is relatively low (I’ve seen as low as $15 for the charge to HHonors for award stays at some Hampton Inns). I think the HHonors payment to hotels for Diamond Redemptions is substantially higher (average daily room rate or some % of rack).

What I believe is happening is that non-Diamond members are reserving award rooms (many without having the points needed) and depleting the bucket of standard HHonors Certificate rooms, forcing Diamond members into the Diamond Redemption bucket. When the non-Diamond members determine that they won’t be using the award room, they cancel and the room likely goes back into the standard award inventory. This could be at any time, but is likely very close to the planned stay date. Thus, Diamonds are making Diamond Redemption stays (and HHonors is paying the higher rate) while standard HHonors Certificate rooms (the lower cost for HHonors) remain available in inventory.

By requiring that members have the points in their accounts prior to reserving an award room, HHonors is reducing the number of situations like those described above, thus reducing their costs.

ExCrew

Not familiar with what you are speaking of. I earned my status with stays. Last year, I stayed in Marriott hotels 143 nights. This year, I divested, spending a lot of time in Hilton to earn my status. I won't be making the same mistake again next year.
Besides....Marriott just treats me better anyway.

holtju2

Marriott's program is the worst one out there when it comes to actually rewarding program members and I spent 125+ paid nights with FS Marriott's last year.

The grass is definitely not greener on Marriott's side. You will learn that when you actually try to book an award room. Yes - it is not available.

Tchau!

derpelikan

you dont have points, you dont get an award.

this does reward those of use who really earn points. i have over 500K hilton points, and they are growing as i dont stay so much on awards on points.

but its good to know that the availabiltiy might go up without the need to diamond force or do other tricks to secure a reward.

but it would be good if hilton just annonces no reward black out dates.

that would solve the problem

dp

MIKESILV

Heres one downside to all this which just occured to me.

A number of my recent HH award stays have been "Special requests" or if you will Diamond Force and I have been very lucky to get points based on the re-embursement amount by HH to the properties ( the last three for example have been AXONs in excess of $500/night) if HH is trying to reduce the cost those special arrangements then my "lucky bonus points" are to drop considerably

Oh well
mike

andrzej

I don't know who's right and who's wrong, but just yesterday I was able to make a PointStretcher reservation at the Conrad Istanbul for 4 nights @72K points total. I'm ~10K points short at the moment, but the Diamond desk had no problem putting it on hold.

anabolism

Someone earlier mentioned that the change makes the phone reservations now match the web site. Given that they have been trying to move people to make reservations via the web (to save them the cost of the phone agent), it makes sense that the change furthers that by eliminating a benefit of using the phone.

I have no knowledge of the reimbursement rates for awards (and have often wondering about it). I've had stays where I had two rooms, one on an award and one on a web-special rate, and the hotel told me they could only upgrade the award room, implying that the web-rate room was too inexpensive. This was before I made diamond, so it had to be the normal award rate. It was an overseas Conrad, BTW.

How did you earn points on an award stay?

anbhc

I am 578 points short to book a 30,000 point reservation. AMEX HHonors points will post next month so no worries, but would HHonors allow you to book award reservation over the phone if you are so close to the required number of points? Would they give you a customer service credit to push the account to 30,000 points if you asked in a nice way?