sfsouthbay

I am only Lifetime Gold with "Bonvoy" (sorry, it's just difficult even saying the name). That said, Hilton HH wasn't my favorite program as I lost a lot of points due to my own oversight years ago and there was no way to get any of them back, and since then I have decided I would no longer stay at any Hilton hotels. At least the lesson learned then was to look at all of my accounts once a year to confirm expiration dates... I am still the "downgraded" Platinum this year, so probably will use points this year and get rid of them while I still had some sort of status. But for personal travel I may end up staying at more Airbnbs.

mahasamatman

Oh, wow! A whole 98 cent benefit!

margarita girl

PHL

Was given immediate Diamond status on a challenge 3 months ago. Stayed 8 times this year and got Diamond til 2020. Haven’t stayed st properties with a big suite inventory, but I do like the ability on the app to pick a room when checking in. And, the free breakfast in most properties has been helpful.

They also have some better point promos now. I have 10 years Diamond status, so I now only need about 150 more for lifetime. Then i guess I’ll be a true free agent between Hilton and my LTT Marriott status.

UKTraveller4Fun

I come from a very loyal spg background but always head Hilton Diamond due to it being my backup for places where SPG didnt have properties which to be fair the merger has helped. Since August imparticular however I have felt that Marriott is just screwing me over and as such Hilton has become more and more my choice. I will admit this is more for short stays or last minute stays and for my longer resort style stays I have still been going to my fav old spg hotels. The things I dont like..

Pepsi - I know personal taste but I rally hate how the spg properties have been forced to switch and speaking to GM's I know they all say it caused far more complaints than positive feedback.
SNA Mess - A mess that due to being unable to use them (something I have done effectively since the inception) cost be $5-7k in fact that some hotels I will only stay if I know I have a certain suite type othewise I dont wish to stay. I get there are IT issues and if Marriott were showing signs of apologising for the mess and actually didn't write off all 10 of my last year SNA's I could accept it but as they are just screwing me over I don't like it.
Points Bookings - It took how long for them to sort out points bookings at certain properties after August, was not only a joke but unnacceptable roleout of something they and the whole world knew would be something people wanted to do from day 1.
Data Breach - Sorry but they simply are not being that transparent and while adhearing to the minimum they must do and hope it gets ignored by most.
Property Cats - To do a big change that starts in August, completes in Feb (but actually doesnt as Cat 8 still dont appear until March) then do a cat change for early March again looks like they made the original list look better then sneak in some changes later.
Promos - This is less of an issue but they are truely awful and the current targetted one is the worst, my partner who hasnt stayed in forever gets a better promo than me, 22 nights alrady stayed this year in Cat 6/7 and theoretical 8s.
Booking Issues - Plain and simple back in August for some time I simply could not book, log into my account, see my points, redeem my points. The call centre at times couldnt help either, it was a mess and it lasted a lot longer than they stated it would. Multiple weekends where the systems were down. To actually then make a points booking which is often what I want to do for last minute bookings as gives best value was simply impossible, so obviously went elsewhere.
Lack of real Apology - I know some disagree but Arne has essentially been MIA on all this, the Marriott response has been issue half hearted comments and hope no one notices and not to draw attention to anything. Well sorry sometimes you need to apologise for things.
Breakfasts - What do you need to say, top tier elites need a chart to figure if they will be entitled to a breakfast at various brands of hotels and that may possible vary by region and it maybe rubbish when you get there. This may vary by Hilton but here in Europe Marriott force me to have a Club lounge breakfast and some are beyond woeful whereas Hilton say lounge or restuarant take your pick and generally this applies at the ones I have been to ones where the resturant is 3rd party whereas at Marriott not a chance!
Lounges - The drinks selection seems to be white wine / red wine and beer whereas at Hiltons in London generally its a selection of wines, a sparkling and spirits. On this subject and also breakfast above I was told that Marriott Europe have told them they can do no more as they wish to standardize accross the entirity of Europe regardless of property location or local customs.
BRG/LNF - This one really annoyed me, the unannounced change in BRG last year where its terms were moved to match LNF but its processes and more importantly the 1 day cancellation of Marriott Advanced rates were not moved over to SPG bookings. Made BRG useless overnight without warning just before major booking period, caused me all sorts of issues.

List is no way complete but its safe to say since August Marriott has lost maybe 70-90 nights from me and a significant amount of revenue, I didn't obviously join Hilton as I already stayed there a bit but what I would say is from April / May of last least I saw a definate improvement in Hilton's treatment of me as a Diamond frm both Suite upgrades, never had to argue for a late checkout and the willingness to try and resolve any issue I may have. It to me seems like they stepped up their game incase they had some new guests to impress! I used to consider SPG a several step up option over Hilton and Hilton my backup option whereas now I consider Hilton and Marriott on the same level and have started looking elsewhere for something higher Rosewood and MO have been great so far this year, but most of this is because of Marriott's woes it did make me look and I found actually the grass is greener!

Handcake

This is sort of what happens. He stays at hotels in hot Asian countries like KL or BKK. Some examples he has told me about: checks in, gets to the room, AC isn't really working well. Calls down about it, they say they will fix it. Has to wait a night before they switch his room because, guess what, the AC doesn't work in that room. So he had to sweat it out a night, that usually results in the hotel offering him 10-20k points. Really, he is a nice guy, I would push for whatever that room is worth for the night in points, so 35-50k points at least or a refund of that room's charge.

Asian lounges have a rule at many hotels no kids allowed for the happy hour service. If he sees kids running around when they shouldn't be in the lounge, he complains and always gets points. I agree with him, he is looking to relax, usually with colleagues after work and having kids running around screaming when they shouldn't be in there is something the hotel is responsible for.

Anyways, he tells me he should be up to 200 nights this year, so I am curious how many points he will get. He has gotten 20k thus far this year.

finflyer

I totally feel the same. For me the biggest downer has been the loss of being able to credit 3 rooms for night credits. Marriott is losing from me 80+ paid nights because of this. I also went with Hilton and some Accor on the side.

Handcake

I honestly want to know who does it best. I was Accor Plat and it was nice to have but the footprint of hotels to stay at was a lot smaller than Marriott. I also think my experience with Marriott lounges has been way better than in the Accor group.

I don't do Hilton as their footprint is really non-existent compared to Marriott/Accor/IHG where I stay.

Hyatt also doesn't have the footprint it needs for me to pump in 50+ nights a year.

How is IHG? I find a lot of their hotels to be lower quality than what I would prefer, or overpriced for a Holiday Inn...$300 a night for a stay in that is beyond gross.

flying_geek

I had signed up for the AX card and now had a couple of stays as a HH Diamond - the in-hotel experiences have been pretty decent, always had late check-out when asked (6-7 times) - and customer service is just infinitely better (like - HH has it, and Marriott does not).
I had had some not so great Hilton experiences quite a few years back and if anyone had told me pre merger that I might switch a reasonable number of nights to Hilton, I would have laughed.
But I was happy enough with them, certainly happier than with the MR/SPG mess, I still do Marriott stays based on footprint - but nowadays I look at Marriott when I didn't see something else I liked

jjmoore

I have also departed this year for Hilton. Status matched to Diamond a couple weeks ago and will spend between 150-200 nights there this year. I'm tired of the leaks and IT issues at Marriott, as well as several botched award bookings there that resulted in countless hours on the phone trying to resolve with their incompetent IT department. I have lifetime status with them and may stay occasionally when I dont have other options.

HH has treated me well so far, and I'm looking forward to trying something new!!

khkchan

I also steered my stays towards Hilton. I have Amex Plat and Marriott took away the breakfast benefit after Aug even though Marriott promised no benefit lost. (I know I should not have given Marriott Plat in the first place but it has been two years).

I have stays that are booked as multiple individual nights. The system is never smart enough to figure out. Always posted as individual nights. Need to email to fix so that I get the 2000 points Megabonus.

still waiting for the brand 1000 Megabonus for the last promo.

uxb

HomerJ

Given that I got the shaft when my 700 but less than 750 nights on Starwood now leaves me a Tier 2 Plat, that my u/g's have been rather lackluster at Marriott properties...and then subsequently learning thru FT that Marriott Plats had night stay bonuses and other vehicles to purchase stay nights to get to that 750...well yes I have gotten a status match with Hilton and shall be seeing how life is as a Diamond member.

WoodyWindy

I've earned Marriott Platinum(75) and Hilton Diamond in parallel for the last several years. From a practical standpoint, most of my travel is business related, and I use whichever brand and hotel is most convenient to my base at the time, balanced with the specific properties' cost and amenities (both program and property-specific). I earned the grandfathered Lifetime Titanium, which is nice, and may have more long-term impact than short for the reasons listed above. I personally expected significant IT and operational issues with the merger, which I saw, but anything that personally affected me was promptly dealt with, so no big deal.

As for the new program/name. The "age"-less Bonvoy(age) program benefits are nice enough; and, though the name sounds millenial-marketingspeak silly, I can deal with it.

JBord

All the stories of people staying at Hiltons are nice, but it would be more interesting (and on topic) to understand how many people here have signed up as new HHonors members as a result of the Marriott-SPG merger.

Having some anecdotal evidence would at least be evidence that there's correlation. From what I'm reading, I'm not seeing many new HHonors signups. It's still interesting that Hilton got 14M new members though...personally, I've been considering getting the Amex card that gives you automatic Diamond status. I wouldn't be a new signup, but I suspect they're driving some new signups through that card.