Hilton lets others sell rooms for a lot less then what is offered to honor members

[Panina]

Irked at the Hilton Honors program.

Today I used Priceline today with the express deal option and got Doubletree Hilton. I paid, total with taxes and fees, $105.97 versus $221.31 if I directly used the Hilton Honors site with an additional discount I would have received for AAA.

What’s wrong with this scenario? Lots, they are suppose to offer us the lowest price.

 

[Tamaradarann]

Irked at the Hilton Honors program.

Today I used Priceline today with the express deal option and got Doubletree Hilton. I paid, total with taxes and fees, $105.97 versus $221.31 if I directly used the Hilton Honors site with an additional discount I would have received for AAA.

What’s wrong with this scenario? Lots, they are suppose to offer us the lowest price.

I thought that Hilton had a low price guarantee with Hilton Honors price matching. You should contact them. If you book thru Priceline you will only get 3 points per dollar for you stay. If you book thru Hilton Honors you should get bonus points depending on the card you have. I believe you get 3 extra points per dollar for the standard no fee Hilton Honors Card. We now have the Aspire Card which give 11 bonus points per dollar. For a $100/night stay that would be 1100 extra Hilton Honors points which I would value at $5.50 extra per night. It is not a lot of money, but income tax and sales tax free nights that we get with Hilton Honors are great so we like getting as many as we can.

 

[clcutts]

You should try without the AAA discount. I have found I can get a better deal sometimes without applying it.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

 

[alwysonvac]

Hilton Price Match guarantee doesn't apply to websites that do NOT disclose the brand or hotel until the reservation is completed

For more info on Hilton's Price Match Guarantee - https://hiltonworldwide3.hilton.com/en/best-price-guarantee/overview.html

 

[Panina]

You should try without the AAA discount. I have found I can get a better deal sometimes without applying it.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

I tried the honors discount, military discount and AAA which came out the least this time.

 

[Panina]

Hilton Price Match guarantee doesn't apply to websites that do NOT disclose the brand or hotel until the reservation is completed

For more info on Hilton's Price Match Guarantee - https://hiltonworldwide3.hilton.com/en/best-price-guarantee/overview.html

You are right plus I don’t think I can get any points. It is a shame that with a last minute booking, where rooms are available they don’t give their members a break but will pass it on to others. It was very easy for me to figure out it was going to be this Hilton with location, regular price, rating and what it showed others booked recently

 

[Talent312]

IME, a hotwire or priceline hidden-vendor booking means that you'll likely be assigned to an undesirable room or location in the hotel (a/k/a the dregs). If I'm gonna spend a ton of $$ getting to a destination and want to enjoy my time, I'm not gonna squeeze nickels on accommodations.

 

[Magus]

I work in the hotel industry. This is what is referred to as "opaque" business in that the buyer doesn't know the hotel exact location or the brand until after you have paid, typically just the star rating of the hotel. And if you don't like what you are given too bad. And as Talent312 mentioned, you will be the lowest priority at the hotel over everyone else (brand.com first, then regular OTA biz, then opaque biz) and your status won't mean jack at most hotels and you won't collect any nights/points for the stay. Hotel companies typically will start releasing some inventory on opaque in the last couple of days on arrival if it is confident that it will have plenty of inventory. If you are just looking for a place to crash for one night and won't be there long, are not brand loyal, and don't really care how old the hotel is/last renovation, it's a cheap way to stay. About 4% of our room nights sold are "opaque" but lower than that on revenue as its the lowest rated nightly rate.

 

[Panina]

IME, a hotwire or priceline hidden-vendor booking means that you'll likely be assigned to an undesirable room or location in the hotel (a/k/a the dregs). If I'm gonna spend a ton of $$ getting to a destination and want to enjoy my time, I'm not gonna squeeze nickels on accommodations.

I most often use my Hilton honors account. I use Priceline for only one night stays when traveling for sleepover if the rates with Hilton are way too high. My experience with Priceline has never given me a dregs room. Even with express deals you can see how many stars and the rating a hotel has (some of the hints of which brand it is). I only pick express deals that are 3 1/2 stars or more in amenities and rated 8 out of 10 or more by reviews. I use my left over nickels for a dinner at a high end restaurant.

 

[bogey21]

If you are just looking for a place to crash for one night and won't be there long, are not brand loyal, and don't really care how old the hotel is/last renovation, it's a cheap way to stay.

Back in the days when I was traveling for business I opted for the cheapest, most convenient (taking into account local transportation) hotel room I could get. I figured all I was going to do was sleep and shower there. Maybe 4 or 5 times over 15 years did I find myself with really undesirable accommodations...

George

 

[Janann]

It was very easy for me to figure out it was going to be this Hilton with location, regular price, rating and what it showed others booked recently

I've only used Priceline Express once, and it was because I was 99% certain which hotel I was going to get. In Priceline's carved maps you can often figure out which hotel meets the constraints for number of stars, rating, number of reviews, and neighborhood maps. This method works best in neighborhoods with only a handful of hotels.

The one time I used Priceline Express about a year ago, I had a nice room that was quiet with a nice view. I couldn't find anything undesirable about the room that would explain why it was assigned to a Priceline booking.

 

[Magus]

Bogey - a lot of Opaque customers are "serial" opaque customers. You can get pretty good at guessing the likelihood of what hotel you'll get, especially if you check pricing/inventory availability of the set of hotels in the star listing. I've done it three times in my life. Two were OK and one was a bad experience. You are more likely to get a good hotel on Opaque if its a low occupancy day of the week (eg: Sunday, staying in a business district during a major holiday or a resort in off season)

 

[Panina]

The mangager just told me when I am doing a late overnight stay I can directly call the front desk. As a valued repeat customer, if available, they can give me a reduced rate and I can go directly thru them.

By the way, they treated me very nice and comped us full breakfast and parking both which I also would have had to pay if I booked directly thru them this trip. And I did not ask for anything, they offered it, I just told them I booked thru Priceline because it was half the price and was surprised how much lower it was given to outsiders.

 

[jehb2]

I haven’t used Priceline in about 15 years but when I did I got nice rooms. I spent too much time and energy booking because I studied “bidding for travel” the TUG of Priceline.

The last time I used Priceline I got a nice hotel for 1 night in Waikiki. They put us on the second floor right next to elevator and the accounting room that held all the cash. At the other end of the you could enter any of the floors directly from the parking garage and you didn’t need a key to get into the building. (Stupid design). We happen to walk out of our room right when two guys were trying to rob the accounting office. We ran back into our hotel room. The guys ended up running off escaping through the garage. They didn’t get anything.

 

[Magus]

Yeah opaque works the same for every hotel company - Hilton, Marriott, Choice, Hyatt, etc. It is going to be 30-50% off the retail rate, usually only available to be booked within a couple of days on arrival. Markets like Midtown NYC may never have good hotels available on Opaque but ones like say Orlando or Detroit frequently will.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

Maybe I am too much of a planner as I have never used Priceline because the whole name your price thing, last minute and hidden hotels made my head explode. Funny, timeshare rules don't make my head explode but Priceline does...

However I frequently use Priceline for auto rentals via AutoSlash (but not for hidden deals) and prices have been significantly cheaper than Costco and the rental companies.

Maybe I should check Priceline more for regular deals because hotel prices lately have been skyrocketing. However I tend to use points and free nights so rarely pay for hotels with cash unless it is on reimbursable business account.

 

[hurnik]

Hilton Price Match guarantee doesn't apply to websites that do NOT disclose the brand or hotel until the reservation is completed

For more info on Hilton's Price Match Guarantee - https://hiltonworldwide3.hilton.com/en/best-price-guarantee/overview.html

And if you want to see the true stories about Hilton's BRG:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilton-hilton-honors/1658544-hilton-best-rate-guarantee-brg.html

You can see they've made it extremely difficult to invoke the guarantee.

 

[Panina]

And if you want to see the true stories about Hilton's BRG:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilton-hilton-honors/1658544-hilton-best-rate-guarantee-brg.html

You can see they've made it extremely difficult to invoke the guarantee.

With all the restrictions the guarantee now means nothing. Just a marketing tactic to make you think you are getting the best rate from them.

 

[dougp26364]

I booked an airport Hilton at LAX once. The room assigned was about as big as a walk in closet and the bed so small I slept on the floor. When we complained, we were told tough nuts, you booked thru Priceline. I don’t think I’ve used Priceline since.

 

[MikeinSoCal]

Our plane was delayed in Maui and I went onto Priceline and found a room for one night at the Sheraton Kaanapali. I was very pleased when I booked it. The room turned out to be horrible. This room was in bad need of a renovation and it was right next to the nosiest elevator ever. Also next to the parking lot, where there was noise all night long. The hotel treated us like a second class citizen even though I was a Gold member. I know I paid a cheap rate, but the way we were treated caused me to switch my loyalty to Hilton. That's my only and last experience with Priceline.

 

[alwysonvac]

Maybe I am too much of a planner as I have never used Priceline because the whole name your price thing, last minute and hidden hotels made my head explode. Funny, timeshare rules don't make my head explode but Priceline does...

However I frequently use Priceline for auto rentals via AutoSlash (but not for hidden deals) and prices have been significantly cheaper than Costco and the rental companies.

Maybe I should check Priceline more for regular deals because hotel prices lately have been skyrocketing. However I tend to use points and free nights so rarely pay for hotels with cash unless it is on reimbursable business account.

Just be careful Priceline and others have their own star rating system which is different than every other travel website that rates the same hotels

https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/2015/03/22/priceline-hotwire-hotel-star-ratings/25072727/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/trav.../priceline-hotel-star-rating-system/13325857/
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I got burned 10+ years ago with Hotwire.com so I don’t use these sites.
It was my first and last time. I had checked Better Bidding before I made my selection. The resort Hotwire gave me wasn't one of the ones mentioned. I was ok with that because there are no guarantees even using Better Bidding but the hotel I was given wasn't in the star category I requested compared to every other popular travel site I checked.

Hotwire refused to give me a refund so I booked someplace else for my stay and lost money. Thank goodness it was just a single night stay before my cruise out of Miami. But I’ve never used those types of discount websites again.