Denied Velocity earnings with Hilton/HHonors stays

[ff-jr]

I've tried searching for any similar posts to no avail...

I had a recent trip to America with stays at several Hilton properties between late May and early September (the majority of them being late May/early June, during the double points promo). No points had posted for each of the relevant stays so I contacted Velocity's retro team (within due time) to process the points. Yesterday I received the following response:

"We have investigated your request and found that your earning style with Hilton HHonors is points only and does not allow you to earn miles with Velocity Rewards. Unfortunately, we cannot change your Hilton HHonors earning style retrospectively."

I checked my HHonors account and my earning preference is set to miles with Velocity being my preferred partner (this is something that was confirmed when I registered for the double points promo prior to any of these stays). This certainly hasn't changed at any stage since I signed up with HHonors as I only registered with the intention of diverting all earnings to my Velocity account.

Has anyone had similar problems/dealings with Velocity/HHonors? Any advice or outcomes?

 

[777]

Have you checked you Hilton account and confirmed that you did earn extra Hhonors points for the stays? If so, you probably need to talk to them. If not, then you should probably ask them why they haven't credited one way or another. Either way your first stop is Hilton not velocity in this scenario.

 

[oz_mark]

AFAIK, the earnings style needs to be set to Point and Fixed Miles for Velocity. Is that what it is set at?

 

[markis10]

I would suggest a call to Hilton is in order.

 

[RWJ777]

I have had a gutful of these large organisations declaring that they "can't" do something retrospectively. I recently had the Hilton tell me they couldn't post points more than 12 months before even though the hotels (2) on that occasion didn't record my stays properly. So their error becomes my problem.

They get out of correcting their errors by deploying little rules with the asserted force of law. Well guess what, they're not. Fair trading legislation does not time limit consumer redress in circcumstances where the error was the trader's in the manner asserted by these large organisations.

So my advice: make a complaint to your state Fair Trading office and let the good compliance people in Velocity sort it out with their customer service counterparts rather than you having to make a dozen calls or send email to yet more people who will seek to hide behind a shield of their little rules-cough-laws.

 

[medhead]

There is no point talking to fair trading when the OP hasn't even approached HHonors in the first instance.


Sent from the Throne

 

[serfty]

AFAIK, the earnings style needs to be set to Point and Fixed Miles for Velocity. Is that what it is set at?

It does let you set it to Points and variable miles, but if you do so with Velocity as your airline you will get nothing as they don't participate in the "Variable" option - it's "Fixed" miles or nothing for airline earning. (Same with QFF.)

No warning & no Velocity points. Let the buyer beware ...

 

[ff-jr]

AFAIK, the earnings style needs to be set to Point and Fixed Miles for Velocity. Is that what it is set at?

This appears to be the problem. What a convoluted process. I'm taking issue with Hilton at the moment about their transparency when it comes to establishing an earnings preference. While points + fixed miles is something that I confirmed when setting up the account (I was puzzled and called to clarify), it's not stuck at their end, now back to Points + Points. That and the fact that on my preferences page my partner preference is set to Velocity, it all feels a little misleading.

In the meantime Velocity credited me with 2,000 points as a good will gesture. Better than nothing, yes, but still 8,000 short of what I should have.

ETA: Thanks for the help, I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[ff-jr]

I heard back from HHonors who told me that they "are not able to make any adjustments for past stays" and gave me a 50% base points credit for all those stays. Hmm. I responded, thanking them for the gesture but assuring them that these points are useless to me and that I would looking into the legality of them denying me the appropriate service.

Early this a.m. I received a response stating that have "entered a case for review to see if the back airline miles can be credit to your account. You should get a response with 3-5 business days regarding this issue." Lets see how this goes.

 

[ff-jr]

As it goes, they can retro revise. No formal response from Hilton but all base points and bonus points posted to my Velocity account overnight. Interestingly, I still have all the points in my HHonors account (which are still useless to me) as well as the goodwill points that Velocity posted.

I'd always been lucky with international travel but this trip slammed me with problems (lost luggage flying VA Y+, cancellations and delays with Delta and VX, hotel points not processing). T'was a long, laborious process but I came out on top.