Compensation Clinic Disaster: How To Get Your Account(s) Closed – Case: Hilton Honors

A LoyaltyLobby reader sent me a case that he was having with Hilton Honors and closed account(s). He gave me a permission to post his rather unfortunate case.

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You can access Hilton Honors here.

READ MORE: Hilton Honors Rate & Bonus Points And Miles Promotions

Here’s what happened with the reader:

Hilton Honors has canceled his account and was referring to excess number of complaints. The reader tried to communicate with them but received no reply.

He approached me and I forwarded the case to our contact at Hilton Honors for review. Often we can help readers in instances when company is stonewalling the issue. This of course assuming that the reader is right.

Well. Turns out that the reader had two accounts and there were quite a few complaints on both.

Here’s what the reader wrote me:

Recently You asked me for email about my case with Hilton Honors, which I mentioned in comment on your fanpage.

I decided to hang on for some days, if there will be answer from Hilton side, but there wasn’t.

So here I am. But what is going on? Let me explain.

I had an account with Diamond status challenge which was valid until 22th may.

I had to do 8 nights to keep the status until march 2019 as you probably know. I was almost at the finish, and there was 1 night to goal. I slept mainly in Hampton by Hilton Hotel Krakow, because this property is closest to my home and it’s relatively cheap (especially in points – 5.000).

In brief – I have done 7 nights, and almost after the 7th night Hilton decided to close my account.

It looked so that I was coming back to home from the hotel, and I wanted to log in into account and check account balance and progress. But I was unable. I thought that Hilton had problems with their website, or were in maintenance. After few tries I called my trusted hotel (DoubleTree by Hilton Warsaw) if they see my account. They told me yes, and informed that could be the temporary problem with hilton website. I said ok, and standby. But after few hours they called me back, and told that my account has disappeared from their records, and something bad happened.

So I began upset and wrote to Hilton Honors fanpage if they can check what is going on, and after an hour I recieved a response. Here it is:

“Hi REMOVED – Upon review of your account, we see that it was closed due to suspicious activity involving compensation abuse. This account has been closed permanently and can not be re-opened. For more information, please email us at Honors_Account_Closure@hilton.com.  -Chantel”

I thought it cannot be true and it’s some kind of misunderstanding…

To clarify that – I did complain twice according to Hampton Krakow, because of real inconveniences I discovered during my stays. That was a long list, and if there will be need to tell – I will write it to You also. But be advised that the complaints were referred only to bad stays (for example – unprepared room for guest arrival, and also unpleasant staff and many more…)

There was 6 stays there, and complaints were for two of six, because the rest of the stays were

relatively alright.

When I came back home I wrote to this email mentioned in message with questions and my explanation.

That was almost 2 weeks ago. I also sent this same email to Hiltonhonors@hilton.com, and recieved automatically generated message that I should to wait up to 48 hours for response.

And I really think that 48 hours left a long time ago… In the meantime (2 days ago) I called to the Hilton hotline with question why they are ignoring me. A nice lady told me (after short speak with supervisor), that I need to write email again and wait, because she cannot reopen it, because it was closed by head office and she has no permissions to reopen. I thanked her, and wrote another email.

It was written 3 days ago, and still no response.

It’s a joke! I had there some points, but I had a reservations on this account, and they disappeared (after verifications with the hotels – they don’t see any reservation).

I have also wrote to hampton hotel, because I had suspicion that they got upset with me, and decided to eliminate their guest, because of being inconvenient for their property, and got angry with me and they complained to hilton headquarters and lied about me that I’m doing fake complaints to get points for free. (obviously that never happened)

Hampton answered me after few minutes. My email was so long, and addressed directly to hotel director. She answered me in English language (while I was writing to her in Polish), and she didn’t related to anything I mentioned in my email. She simply told me:

Here’s what the Hilton Honors wrote back:

Conclusion

I wanted to post this one here to warn readers:

1. Not to have more than one account (it is ok for each family members to have one)

and

2. Not to complaint excessively

The Hilton affiliated property get charged $200 fee for every file that the Guest Assistance opens for service issues affecting Diamond member. I would assume that one of the properties didn’t like what was going here and asked Hilton Honors to have a look.

It is already mid-May in 2017 and I have probably only had one hotel compensation issue this year despite staying more than 120 nights so far and one in the works. It is bit inconceivable that one would have issues with almost each and every stay.

And I feel little bid bad at forwarding this case to Hilton Honors. At least the reader got comprehensive reply, although this ended up canceling his second account.