Reader Paul D. writes,
- [M]y friend…contacted Hilton HHonors Customer Care to ask what promotions are currently available… he was offered an unpublished offer of 2500 bonus points on his next stay within 60 days by a Hilton HHonors Customer Care agent.
Following his stay, the 2500 bonus points posted to his HHonors account at the same time as the base points with the description ‘Service Center Thank You Bonus’.
I therefore tried contacting Hilton HHonors myself and sent an e-mail to hhonors@hilton.com. I got a very quick response (within 30 minutes):
Thank you for your inquiry regarding HHonors promotion. We appreciate you taking the time to contact us.
I will be happy to extend a special offer of 2,500 bonus points for your first/next stay within the next 60 days.
I encourage you to try sending an e-mail to hhonors@hilton.com!
This is of course separate from the 2500 bonus points for an eligible stay by end of year. I imagine that this may work, until it doesn’t.
I bet DCS will harrass them at checkin until he gets 10,000 points
that’s $8
i just emailed. the HH agent just said i was already registered for the Q4 current promotion that expires dec 31st. is there another promotion code i can quote???
Quick response, but just a link to the offers page of Hilton website for me.
I also sent an email. They asked for a promotion number. They did not know if this offer. Any thoughts?
Gary, you dolt, why aren’t you mentioning the fact that Hilton Diamonds get 2,500 Service Center Bonus points PER STAY, just by ASKING. So far this year, I am 11/13 on extra bonus points posting on stays.
I emailed them and received the reply that they cannot find any such promotion.
No dice on either 2,500 points for next stay or asking about past stays.
@Gary sez, likely with a straight face: “This is of course separate from the 2500 bonus points for an eligible stay by end of year. I imagine that this may work, until it doesn’t.”
This is simply surreal. Gary, you would be a dolt ( 😉 ), if you truly believe that there is any credibility to the notion that these “unpublished” 2500 points that the HH agent mentioned are different from the published ones that one will get for a stay of two nights or more until the end of the year. HHonors does not do “unpublished”. That’s the domain of works-in-progress like HGP.
@DCS “stay within 60 days” is different than “stay by December 31” and one is geographically restricted and the other not. So yes they seem different. Which one of us is the dolt?
@UA-NYC sez: “I bet DCS will harrass [sic] them at checkin until he gets 10,000 points”.
Like I said in the other thread, you do not have enough brain power to waste time engaging. I will illustrate. DCS plays by the rules, which unlike for some programs that I won’t mention, are always clearly spelled out in the HHonors program.
I do not need to harass anyone to rake in loads of HH points. Case in point: I just completed a 3-night AWARD stay at the new and exquisite Waldorf Astoria (WA) Beijing, where I was upgraded to a suite without “harassing” anyone and my incidentals came out to about $500. As a competent miles/points player, I knew about and had signed up for the following stackable promos that are specific for stays at WA and Conrad until 12/31/2015:
– 5,000 Bonus Points for any Stay of 2 Nights or More.
– 2,000 Points/Night on any stay
In addition, HHonors is running their TRIPLE YOUR TRIP “global” promo, which is also good until 12/31/2015 and is stackable with the two above. And, of course and as usual with HH promos, they do not distinguish between award and revenue stays; one earns promo bonus points for either.
Throw in the various elite bonuses and my double-dipping earning style, and I raked in 27,150 HH points from a 3-night AWARD stay and just $500 in incidentals. Also, I paid for the stay with my AMEX Surpass, which will contribute about ($500 * 12) = 6,000 more points, so that when it is all said and done, I will earn about 33K points from this 3-night AWARD stay and $500. For some perspective, that’s like earning about 11K HGP points from single ‘pure’ AWARD stay 😉
The ease of earning loads HH points on limited spend as illustrated above (a) is what made all the talk of HH “devaluation” very silly, and (b) continues to make HHonors the most rewarding hotel loyalty program out there.
So, @UA-NYC, I do not need to and do not ever harass anyone to earn HH points (or get suite upgrades). I just play “by the book.”
Off this morning from a 5-night award stay the highly aspirational Conrad Koh Samui [which will also earn me loads of points on just incidentals thanks to the same concurrent promos] to BKK, where I will spend one award night at the Marriott Renaissance BKK, before heading to SIN, where I will do a 3-night C+P stay at Grand Hyatt Singapore and party away into 2016 at the Orchard Tower…
G’day
@Gary — HHonors does not do “unpublished” promos. Period. The reader who emailed you was mistaken or the agent was simply wrong, as preliminary evidence already shows.
@JohnB: “I emailed them and received the reply that they cannot find any such promotion.”
@Beachfan: “No dice on either 2,500 points for next stay or asking about past stays.”
I would say it is eminently clear who is gullible — hint: he is the self-proclaimed “thought leader in travel — and dolt!
@Gary — HHonors does not do “unpublished” promos. Period. The reader who emailed you was mistaken or the agent was simply wrong, as preliminary evidence already shows:
@JohnB: “I emailed them and received the reply that they cannot find any such promotion.”
@Beachfan: “No dice on either 2,500 points for next stay or asking about past stays.”
I would say it is eminently clear who is gullible — hint: he is the self-proclaimed “thought leader in travel” — and a dolt!
Same response for me–the reply from HHonors didn’t know about such a promo, and asked for the promo code.
Nothing offered
@dcs – I followed Gary’s instructions and sent an email to hhonors. I have received confimation (as has my tipped-off friend) of registration of this 2500 bonus for the first stay w/in 60 days. I specifically referred to it as “unpublished”.
@co — With n = 1, call me skeptical. In fact, there is no such thing and if it worked for you, it is the exception that will affirm the rule.
In fact, if this promo is real, it will not remain “unpublished” for much longer. Someone inside might have gotten wind of it and mentioned it ahead of its official release. It is not like HHonors to tolerate to deal with a stupid deluge of emails from members reclaiming points for an “unpublished” promo. Hyatt GP does that sort thing, not HHonors!
@DCS – please set aside your annoying bombast for a second. I actually appreciate your comments, except for the way you make such effort (or maybe not) to be unkind to others.
You’ve now chosen two sides of your own argument. Did it happen? Or not?
Actually, n=3 for now, including Gary, my friend and me. I’m not arguing with you. Why are you with me?
As to a “stupid deluge of emails” that HH would never tolerate – how about the currently ongoing status match to Diamond to all? They asked for a “stupid deluge” theough 1/11 IIRC.
I really do appreciate your contribution to discourse. Civil discourse. Not when you shift to jerk mode. “Dolt”, “stupid”, etc.
@co — I will set aside nothing. In fact, I will double down and predict that nothing will come of this. I must have missed where @gary said that he confirmed this promo, so that leaves you and your “friend”, with other folks reporting what is likely the case: HHonors knows nothing about this ” unpublished” promo. If it is targeted, it will say so, otherwise it would be open to all. That’s how HHonors does business.
G’day!
I emailed Hilton HHonors, first reply asked for more info about the promo, second reply confirmed that my account was registered for a ‘special offer of 2,500 bonus points for your first/next stay within the next 60 days’ 🙂
btw I think this promo has been running since 2003… http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilton-hilton-hhonors/129130-2-500-bonus-points.html
Also, some users on this German forum (http://www.vielfliegertreff.de/hilton-hhonors/86052-promo-targeted-winback50kpoints-3.html) reported in August 2015 that they were registered for a ‘Service Center Thank You Bonus’ of 2500 points for the first/next stay within 60 days.
They said they can’t locate any such promotion.
wow, so much anger!
I appreciate something like this getting posted as soon as possible, even if it ends up not working out. I also appreciate that there was no credit card link in the post, for once. Sometimes I’ve jumped on some amazing opportunities on this blog. And there are plenty of worse bloggers on boardingarea than Gary!
As for myself, I got the following reply:
“Thank you for your inquiry regarding promotions. We appreciate you taking the time to contact us.
Regretfully, I was unable to locate the promotion you reference with the information provided. In order to investigate this matter further, please forward the promotion codes and the dates you were trying to book from the advertisement. It may also be helpful to advise how you heard about this offer.
Please note, if the offer you referenced was advertised on a third party web site, or through a travel agency, my office may not have access to the details. If this is the case, I recommend contacting the source of the offer.”
i have also not heard of unpublished promotions (the very point of a promotion is to promote something, in other words to publicize something, isn’t it?). But, it was worth a shot I guess.
When I inquired about this promotion I was also told that this promotion was unknown to them. However, I replied with a link to this thread, and then I received this reply: […] I am unable to extend this offer as this was a targeted offer available for select participants. However, I will be happy to extend a special offer of 2,500 bonus points for your first/next stay within the next 60 days […]
@DCS obviously from some of the reports in the comments it is neither targeted nor open to all — it is something that the service center can add at their discretion when asked. Not every service center agent will either know to or realize what they’re being asked for or be willing to. So it’s “YMMV”
@Gary — you may have a point about this possibly being a “service center adjustment” of some kind. But such adjustments need to be justified and usually need to be authorized by a supervisor. I regularly get them when, e.g., AMEX forgets to award me the 500 booking bonus that I am supposed to get every time I book and pay for a stay with one of the their co-brand cards. The last time they forgot to give me this bonus, I got an apology for the oversight and — you guessed it — 2500 extra points on top of what I was owed for “their bad.” I’d reported it on MilePoint at the time…
HHonors simply does not do “unpublished” promos. Such promos are a can of worm and folks at HHonors, who run a tight ship, know it…
I tried it too and received the identical response to @augias. Oh well, worth a try for 2,500 points. Too bad it didn’t work out. I’m only out about a minute of time to compose an email to Hilton – like everyone else here – so it’s not as if it wasn’t worth the minimal effort. Some people seem unduly upset at not getting what would have been a nice bonus.
Thanks for the waste of time…
Thank you for your inquiry regarding your HHonors account. We appreciate you taking the time to contact us.
Regretfully, we were unable to offer you the 2,500 points for your next stay within 60 days promotion as this was a tool for a recovery situation only. I apologize
So glad DCS is so very proud of himself and his Hilton rewards. I find Hilton hard to earn and hard to use so I go elsewhere. But, bully for you DCS. Now, go start your own blog for Hilton if you’re so awesome and leave Gary alone. Rene did it for delta and, from the looks of it, is doing quite well. Or maybe all you are capable of is being critical of Mr. Leff. I, for one, will begin skipping your comments because you add nothing to the discussion and would advise others to do the same, mainly because I think your pleasure is found in the engaging, not in the discourse.
I tried the email and this is what I got back:
Dear Mr. Wainstein,
Thank you for your inquiry regarding a promotion. We appreciate you taking the time to contact us.
Regretfully, we are unable to offer this promotion at this time as this promotion was a leeway used by our customer service agents use in service recovery situations.
If there is anything else we can assist you with, please do not hesitate to contact us. For immediate assistance, please click on the link below for the contact number of the Hilton Worldwide Service Center location nearest you.
http://hhonors3.hilton.com/en/support/index.html
Best Regards,
Maria Cecilia B.
Email Coordinator
Customer Care Email Department
Hilton Reservations and Customer Care
http://www.hiltonworldwide.com
@Chris — I have no time to start and run my own blog but as someone who is big-time into travel and miles and points, I love discussing the topic and have contributed more to the hobby in much larger forums than you ever will.
For example, here’s a good one I’d reported on my losing my passport in Hong Kong on a Sunday, just two hours before I was to board my flight back to the US:
https://milepoint.com/forums/threads/passport-lost-at-hkg-airport-2-hr-before-departure-on-a-sunday-what-do-you-do.93639/
…or this report that in which I provided the details of how I planned my Big-Time mile/point redemption in 2014 to criss cross the Asian continent, very very affordably [the 2015 edition of the same coming soon so stay tuned!]:
https://milepoint.com/forums/threads/2014-year-end-asian-escapade-or-the-anatomy-of-a-big-time-redemption.109108/
Lastly, this is pathetic: “I find Hilton [points] hard to earn and hard to use…”, says it all.
Everyone knows that Hilton points are the easiest to earn, and considering Hilton’s huge “footprint”, it is also no secret that their points are among the easiest to redeem. That you cannot manage this trivial feat says as much about your inadequacies as ir does about the merit of your crazy notion that Gary wants to be left alone, much less needs to be defended by such a misfit…
Only dolts with mental inadequacies are pathetic enough to lose their passport overseas…ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present to you the misfit “DCS”!
@UC-NYC sez: “Only dolts with mental inadequacies are pathetic enough to lose their passport overseas.”
If that makes any sense to you, it must mean that you have never lost anything at all in your life, at home or abroad. Since I am 100% sure that anyone who posts here has at some point in their life lost something, this is the sort of stupid posts that should be tolerated only because of the “soft bigotry of low expectation.”
Censor yourself for your own good until you get smart enough to avoid making such an ass of yourself everything you post!
Again, G’day from Grant HYATT Singapore where I just scored a suite upgrade as a HGP Plat!!!
At least I’m not a parasite who feeds off others’ hard work. And, I don’t believe myself to be as superior as you seem to need to be. But, go ahead, keep up the good work that so many enjoy hearing about. Oh, wait, I’m not the only one who thinks you’re a blowhard . . .