Hilton Closes Honors Account Claiming Excess Compensation?

A LoyaltyLobby reader dropped us a note about Hilton closing an Honors account claiming excess compensation.

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You can access Hilton Honors here.

Here’s the email from the reader:

We received email last night that Hilton had done 24 month review and closed our account. We had a huge amount of points in it as we are rewarded through expenditure on another facility and was also rewarded some compensation from a few bad experiences we had incurred. One of which we lost nearly £2000 in having our car broke into after using their secure parking and checking in to find our car smashed up.

With England in lockdown for the past 12months how could we spend anything. Is this completely outrageous.?

Would appreciate your thoughts.

I asked where a large number of points came from:

Points come from a card account which give you gold membership if you spend a Hugh amount and also compensation from a few bad experiences we had received.

A reader received the same boilerplate email from Honors we have seen previously:

Hilton is committed to providing our guests with rewarding experiences, high quality accommodations, friendly and efficient services, along with clean and comfortable surroundings, backed by our commitment to guest satisfaction.

Regrettably, your comments/complaints indicate that your stays, and/or contact with our corporate offices, have been less than agreeable. Our offices, Guest Assistance, Corporate Headquarter and/or hotels have issued refunds and/or points in support of our commitment to you – our guest.

Based on the amount of compensation that has been extended to you against the total revenue spent at our hotels within the last 24 months, our consistent inability to live up to your expectations is very concerning to us. We do not believe that the Hilton Portfolio of Brands is designed to meet your travel needs. For this reason, we recommend that you seek accommodations at a different hotel chain for future travels to avoid this type of inconvenience.

Given these circumstances, the decision has been made to close your Hilton Honors account and there will be no further compensation offered to you in the form of refunds, points, and/or stay certificates.

Such discontinued membership may result in the loss of all accumulated Points and the cancellation of Hilton Honors Certificates, benefits and privileges, including the loss of any associated Elite Tier status.

Finally, nothing in this letter shall be deemed a waiver of any rights or remedies available to Hilton, Inc. or any of our affiliates, all of which are hereby expressly reserved.

Here’s what I believe is going based on this and previous account closure cases we have covered:

1. Mostly award stays

Hilton compensates hotels very little for award stays unless they are at very high occupancy.

2. Few complaints with points awarded

Hilton tends to value compensation points with full price

3. Searching for accounts with little revenue and compensation awarded

Hilton must have an automated process looking for accounts with very little revenue and compensation points awarded for service and quality issues.

Here are two previous cases:

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

Hilton Honors Closed Account After Two Complaints?

Conclusion

There are too many consistencies on these cases that we have covered for them to be anomalies.

If someone is always genuinely unhappy with most of their stays, it makes sense to move to some other chain or hotels that can better suit their needs and is not an issue for Hilton to nudge a bit.

These account closures really only affect members who mostly stay on points/vouchers and have compensation points issued for service failures.

I don’t believe that if you have a normal stay pattern with Hilton and a complaint or two here and there, you need to be worried.