Tag Archives for hilton.
Recently, Hilton set standard fees for late checkout. The goal is to upsell guests – including elite guests – for something that used to be offered to all Honors members for free. Increasingly, the free benefit for elites is disappearing from Hilton’s promotional materials, too.
Hilton has a new property system coming onboard to merchandise various aspects of your stay. One of the things they’re standardizing is how hotels upsell late check-out. The price for a confirmed late checkout will be set by brand.
The ‘number of members’ is really just ‘records in the database.’ The more rooms you have, the more people are booking them, the more sign up for a program usually just to avoid paying extra. A large marketing file is valuable! But it says little about the value of the program. Far more interesting is which programs outperform the size of the chain.
Long check-in lines are de rigueur in Las Vegas. People go to Vegas for a break, and the start of their trip is a queue – probably first for the ride from the airport to their hotel, and then to get into their room. What could be more of a mass experience, and what could make an upscale hotel feel more like Circus Circus than this?
The hotel room wasn’t great, but that’s the base room at the property and what they were entitled to. The problem here is the disconnect between expectation and reality, the dismissive tone of the hotel towards Honors redemptions, and… the hotel manager’s appalling response.
Hilton Honors is offering some members 4,000 bonus points for a single stay taken any time within the next year – but you have to register by December 31st.
Once registered, any eligible stay within 12 months earns the points. The promotion has apparently been around for quite awhile but I haven’t seen it. It’s been in my account – and the accounts of many other members! – for some time but hasn’t generated much discussion. I saw it mentioned online, checked my account, and there it was.
Eligible members must complete 1 stay, within 12 months from registration date.
Example: Member receives email on March 1, registers March 5, the member has 12 months to complete 1 stay from March 5 to receive 4,000 Bonus Points.
Log into your account and there, under ‘points’ you will see ‘points promotions’. Select that and you’ll see whether it’s available to you.
Here are the offer terms:
This offer is only valid and exclusive to select members and is not transferable. To be eligible for this offer from Hilton Honors, member (1) must have received this offer directly from Hilton Honors, (2) register to participate using the same e-mail address associated with the promotional invitation by December 31, 2024 and (3) complete 1 stay within 12 months from registration date. For examples and further details, please see the FAQ page.
It’s 4,000 easy points – you don’t have to be a regular with Hilton. A once a year Hilton type like I am is enough to earn the bonus. And while I only value Hilton points at around half a cent apiece, this is still $20 for a stay you may do anyway. And I am far more interested in collecting Honors points now that they can be spent with SLH Hotels.
One Hilton hotel in Southern California doesn’t even give their guests access to heating and air conditioning on demand. Sometimes it’s one, sometimes it’s the other, and sometimes guests aren’t allowed to use either one.
A guest was banned from a Southern California DoubleTree hotel while visiting Disneyland after ruining towels that were in the bathroom. Their sister “cut herself while shaving her leg [and] used a towel to wipe and stop the bleeding.”
Hilton Honors offers free 90 days of status to anyone with current elite status in a major hotel program that has stayed at a hotel at least once in the last 24 months. Then, if you stay with them you can keep or upgrade the status – valid for nearly two full years at this point.
The offer has been available for some time but it’s just been changed.
The Graduate Hotels brand is a 10-year old chain with 33 hotels (all but two in the United States) with a focus on acquiring and remodeling properties in college towns such as Annapolis, Ann Arbor, Berkeley and Bloomington. Expansion is planned near UT Austin, Auburn, SMU and Princeton.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
