You may be interested to know that Marriott and Starwood do the same thing as Hilton so you won’t find anything different at Marriott which also has a no blackout pledge

In this case, Homewood only offers 1 and 2 bedroom “suites”. So their 1BR should be the “standard” but of course everyones definition of standard is going to conveniently be 1 or 2 beds in a SINGLE room. Marriott does this, Starwood too.

I’ve seen Marriott franchisees play games as well, adding movie tickets, a Mall debit card or breakfast to the room rate and suddenly its no longer “standard”. But available for cash of course!

Some local property owners have figured this trick out and in periods of high demand, will do this to squeeze every penny out of every last room.

Low demand, you’ll get the room!

A “big” weekend or nights where almost all rooms are sold out in a geographic area TRUMPS all logic, common sense and program rules as local properties will do whatever it takes to sell rooms at the highest price, points be damned. Sad but true and the definition of what is a standard room provides the room to wiggle!

I’ve seen Marriott’s throw in a free movie rental and popcorn to a room – and guess what – that room is no longer Standard!

That’s the problem with marketing, they just put the * and put all the exceptions/exemptions in the fine print.

HHonors points can be redeemed for standard rooms. That is correct. Some Homewood Suites have both standard rooms and suites, if those standard rooms are soldout you won’t be able to use points for the suites. If it is an all-suite property, the ‘standard’ room at that property is a suite, so technically you should be able to use points.

Corporate always takes the side of the guest (unfortunately for the hotel owner). HHonors reservations are made at corporate. When you call them, they want nothing else to be able to honor your request. If they can not, they will not make up an ‘exception’ rule.

Exemptions: Hotels can apply for exemptions for black-out days under extreme conditions: as stated above these are big events like super bowls. You have to apply for these 6months-year in advance. So at the property, if we are almost sold out tonight, I can not call corporate and black-out tonight. They won’t do it.

Honestly, people are not perfect and bad experiences can happen at any property whether it be Hilton/Starwood/Marriott. If you stay at a property 50 times a year, something is going to go wrong. If you let those few experiences cause you to change Brands, well, you’ll be changing every couple years.

Except that Hilton doesn’t declare itself above the fray. Starwood has has an almost identical no blackout policy since 2001. Marriott has adopted basically the same policy a few ago. They all use roughly the same slogan and have the same limitations, e.g. standard room, not applicable during special events, etc. I believe Hyatt does as well, but I’m not certain.

@Ronin

The hotel doesn’t get to arbitrarily declare a special event and thus be excepted from the rule. Assuming Hilton uses a similiar procedure as Starwood, the hotel has to Petition the chain and be granted the exception. In my experiences, the special event is one what any reasonable person would agree is very special. Some exceptions have included the Rose Bowl., Super Bowl, Obama Inaguaration in DC, etc. This events happen relatively rarely so that it is disengenious to call the policy as sham, given that for any given hotel, its in place nearly every day.

Who better to clarify the rules? If the President says it is a ‘standard’ room or that the no blackout rules apply, then I would take my letter with me to the hotel and politely ask for my points to be honored.

I will admit that I’ve never booked a reward stay at a Homewood Suites, though I had booked reward stays at Hilton, HGI, Hampton, and Doubletree locations with no problems.