How does one avoid adjoining rooms?

 

Did you actually book using the �connecting rooms� feature, or just try and manually select rooms during online check-in?

I have a booking for next month that shows confirmed connecting rooms.

 

I can report that adding "No connecting rooms please" to the reservation notes frequently doesn't work!

 

There is no way possible to avoid it depending on the property. If you're at a HWS where normally there aren't many connecting rooms it's fairly easy. But at a lot of HIS/HGI properties, you could have 90% of the rooms be connecting to another which makes it nearly impossible to avoid and certainly it's nothing that a property will ever guarantee. Make a reservation note and call the property the day before arrival and hope for the best.

 

This past week, I chose to try Hilton properties again, after switching my loyalty to Marriott for ~ the past 10 years to try out the new confirmed connecting room feature. We are a family of 5, and that presents challenges in finding affordable accomodations at most destinations. We were traveling to NYC for 5 nights, and in their smaller roomed hotels, this was especially challenging. Then I found out about the confirmed connecting rooms option, and figured that could be a game changer.

We booked 2 connecting rooms, King City View and 2 Queens City View at the Hilton Garden Inn New York/Manhattan-Midtown-East with confirmed connecting rooms in late October for this stay. We oscillated between this and the Embassy Suites New York - Midtown Manhattan with 2 King Bed Studio's connecting, but felt the City view and the queen bed accomodations were a better fit. Although, I happen to have gotten a reservation for both during the selection process (thankfully). When we arrived at the HGI, we were greeted kindly, given our keys, and when we went up to the 25th floor where our room was, there were no connecting doorways between the two.

This was where the fun began. I returned to the front desk to request alternate rooms that met my reservation. I was told, as the situation progressed:
1) Connecting Rooms are not guaranteed, just requested.2) They would look through their inventory and find connecting rooms for us3) We could stay in our current rooms, and they would find connecting rooms for us the following evening4) We could all stay in a single 2 Queen Room, exceeding maximum occupency, for the night and then they would find connecting rooms for us5) They could not put us up into an alternate hotel with appropriate accomodations for the 5 of us6) They would cancel my reservation, with no cancellation fee to me, and I could contact Hilton Customer ServiceWe were about to switch over to a (more expensive) room at the nearby Residence Inn, but while on hold with Hilton Customer Service, I discovered my mistake of not cancelling my reservation with the Embassy Suites. This saved the day, as we ordered a Lyft and arrived to find that they had the connecting rooms for us. By this point in time, I'd been on the phone with customer service for ~ 30 minutes, and we'd been in the hotel lobby for over an hour, missing dinner reservations in the process, and having our youngest fall asleep waiting.

Hilton Customer Service gave me 20,000 points initially on the phone. I requested that the HGI compensate me with 1 night's, for both rooms, as that would essentially cover the "walking" price that I feel they were responsible for (and provide a disincentive to not honor Hilton's policies). Instead, I was contacted 3 days later with another 30,000 points. I have responded back to customer service that this compensation amount is laughable. Even if they would only cover the cost of the rooms, in points, each of the rooms I booked cost in excess of 70,000 points per night.

I was already a little suspicious when I couldn't find any language on the Hilton website indicating what the recourse would be in case the confirmed connecting rooms were not honored. But now I feel that this benefit is just about as valuable as requesting connecting rooms in any other chain / property, as it is up to the hotel to honor the request. If they don't honor it, there appears to be little recourse to get you through the night.

I wanted to share my experience, as the only information I could find when doing my research beforehand were news feed posts from travel websites decrying this feature as the second coming, but giving few details about whether it is actually faithfully honored, and what the recourse would be if it wasn't.

 

Very annoying indeed.. Thank you for reporting it - I hope you can get some points out of hilton.
If arriving late I d pick #3 and put 1 adult in each. Then sort out in the morning.
Searching for another hotel is usually not the best option and front desks are understaffed to be of help even if they want to.

 

Agree with your comments. Very poor customer service but I think the best solution for the first night was your suggestion that I bolded. And then raised holy-heck with the manager the next morning..

 

That was going to be my choice, but the boss told me that we weren't under any circumstances accepting this offer, especially once there was availability showing at the Residence Inn for a 1 bedroom suite that accomodated up to 6 (2 Queens in the bedroom, plus sofa bed in the living room area).

I responded to the Hilton Honors response, telling them that the 30,000 points they gave me was laughable, given the cost (in points) of each room was more than double that amount, and providing more details than the original call center agent put into the complaint. I received another 40,000 points.

I'm more frustrated with the fact that the hotel has felt little to no recourse for the blatant disregard to the policy, and the loss of this option for us in the future, until I hear many reports of successful experiences (and if Hilton were to provide clear policy on what the hotel should be doing in this instance). As such, I responded again with the following (which I don't feel is unreasonable):

 

Delta has a 20 minute baggage delivery "guarantee". If they fail, you get 2500 SkyMiles (worth about $25).
JetBlue has an Overhead Bag space "guarantee" on certain fares. If they fail, you get a $25 credit.
Hilton, oddly doesn't have any T&Cs for Confirmed Connecting Rooms, and doesn't address a failure in the FAQ on their website, but you got 70k HHonors points, arguably worth $350+.

I say you came out ahead.

 

I don't think OP's point was about hoping for compensation rather than getting what was actually promised, which is showing up at the hotel with proper rooms ready, and what might incentivize hotels to actually do their job. In this case, that job is when running whatever room assignment or other reports they have, noting confirmed connecting rooms and assigning them that way (and steering other reservations that could conflict with future day connecting needs away from them). And as reservations come in, ensuring that when the max number of connecting confirmations that can be honored are made for a given night, that the Hilton reservation site doesn't allow further. Surely they must have a way to do that just as any other capacity limits.

My kids are old enough now that it doesn't matter (they can stay down the hall on their own), but when they were smaller we often considered getting a 2nd room. In the end, I never bothered because it always seemed like a gamble from reading reviews and terms (it usually is just an unread note in the reservation). Last thing I wanted to do was stand there at checkin arguing that since they couldn't honor the connecting, we would take just one room (but needed 2 beds in it plus a rollaway) and to not charge us for the other one. Having a trustable confirmed way to do it would actually increase room sales in some cases.

Regardless, Hilton is marketing it like an actual new confirmed feature, so not actually implementing that is actually worse than the old "meh, maybe we'll try to find you a room like that, maybe we won't" from before.

 

I think the fact of the matter is that there will be times when it's not possible to meet the guarantee (perhaps a guest that was supposed to check out never did), I mean it's not unheard of for a hotel to be over-booked in general. Yes, there should be some standard compensation, and it should be enough to incentivize the hotel to do its best to honor the confirmed room. I wouldn't claim that $25 is satisfactory, but I think $350 definitely is. Regardless, Hilton should be more explicit about a failure to deliver in the T&Cs or FAQ, even if to merely protect themselves against any claim of more significant "damages" and/or negative press.

 

What was the total number of points you received. From your first post it was 20k then another 30k. Did you then get ANOTHER 40k for a total of 90k? or was the total 70k?

either of those sound more than fair.

 

It sounded to me like it was 20k+40k, for a total of 60k.

Each of the rooms booked by the OP were going for 70k points per night. While I disagree that it sounds "more than fair", I think there would be more general agreement that 60k points is worth less than 70k points.

Getting 60k points in total sounds like Hilton and the property have gone cheap on going toward making good for the hotel side's failure to satisfy a guest's reasonable expectations. Now imagine if Hilton had a 100%-satisfaction-or-your-money-back-guarantee or its points equivalent.

There was a time when HGI and Hampton used to be pretty good about making good on not charging customers if failing to fully satisfy their customers with a reasonable complaint. Nowadays, not so much.

 

Agree. Sounds like it�s time to move on, IMO. Stuff happens when you travel and while the situation isn�t ideal, at least you got some points thrown at you.

 

60k
I really tried to do the math... poster was offered 20k then 30k and then he said another 40k. if the 30k was upped to 40k I don't think that was clear....

I said earlier I agree - poor customer service. But some missing facts:

• What was the original form of payment? I got the impression the 70k a night was a "that is what it was going for that night". If they paid 70k and only got 60k back that is wrong.
• The poster also said that they said they had double reservations at the HGI and ES they did not cancel - did they expect those points back on the ES? Sounds like it was past cancel time and they might have gotten lucky for not being dinged for a no-show at the ES
• Not sure what the reference to the RI having availability has anything to do with the story? Were they offered to be walked to the Ri?
• And who is "the boss" who said that the two rooms solution with adults splitting up for one night was not a workable solution? The boss of the hotel or the "boss" of the family?

Again - hotel screwed up. And they needed to make it right by moving them to another hotel. 60k, 70k, or 90k points if made whole on all else sounds like they admitted they messed up. I also think there is a lot more to the story. \