Car rental damage cases are usually disputes between two parties — the renter and the agency. But not always. Ron Goldstein recently rented a car from Thrifty in Los Angeles. He left the car with a parking valet at the DoubleTree by Hilton Guest Suites Santa Monica. It’s a decent hotel about a block from [...]
HILTON
Erica Lara and her boyfriend, Patrick, checked into the Hilton Key Largo Grande Resort & Beach Club last Saturday for a wedding, but they didn’t stay long.
Hotel room rates are about to resume their climb. The latest forecast calls for average daily room rates to get a modest 3.5 percent bump in 2011, which means we’ll all pay a little more for our accommodations next year.
Hilton offers Joy Valentine a $199 a night rate at its New York property, but it can’t find the price in its system, so it charges her $239 instead. The rate is nonrefundable, so when Valentine asks it to fix the mistake, Hilton refuses. Is there anything she can do to persuade the hotel to honor its original price?
If you stay at enough Homewood Suites properties, you’ll eventually wonder about the duck.
Norman and Mary Lou Vitrano are by their own admission not Internet-savvy, which is why they phoned the Doubletree Beach Resort Tampa Bay/North Redington Beach to make their room reservations last August. When the couple’s plans changed and they tried to cancel their reservation, a hotel representative informed them their room was completely non-refundable.
By request, here’s a story without a happy ending. But not because you asked for it. Jay Green did — and it’s his story.
Bedbugs. Just the mention of these tiny, bloodsucking insects is enough to send a veteran road warrior packing. But what does a hotel owe you if you’ve been ravaged by a swarm of Cimex lectularius during your stay? No, that’s not an academic question. I wish it was. So does Hilton. So does Diane Lapin, [...]
Nate Bear has been a Hilton frequent guest for more than a decade, having earned Gold VIP status during hundreds of hotel stays. One of the benefits he likes the most is Hilton’s No Blackout Dates rule that seems pretty straightforward: “If there’s a standard room available at any Hilton Family hotel or resort worldwide, you can redeem points for it. No exceptions, no fine print. It’s that simple.”
Here’s the view that greeted us when we checked into the Hilton Pensacola Beach Gulf Front yesterday afternoon. Beautiful? Yes. But it’s also 40 degrees, not counting the wind chill factor. Maybe that’s why there’s no one here. But you know us — we’re contrarian travelers. We go where no one else does. And when [...]
Got a problem with Hilton? You might get help. Then again, you might not.
In 1991, Robert Annenberg paid $150 for life membership in Senior HHonors Gold VIP program. Last year, Hilton terminated his membership without warning. Is Annenberg’s elite status gone?
Nicholas Czapor books four Hilton hotel stays through a double points promotion. But the points never show up in his account, and now Hilton is offering him only a fraction of the promised award. Can it do that? And what recourse, if any, does Czapor have?
Elliott is consumer advocate 
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