How do Hilton treat you as an Elite?

[Pele]

Property: Conrad Manilla
Room booked: King Deluxe (base room)
Status: Gold
Rate: About PHP15k whic is something like $370 i think
Received: Executive Panorama window suite

Prior to arrival they asked if I had any room preference. I cheekily said if you could upgrade me to the biggest best room you had that would be great. This was a pretty good effort. 1.5 bathrooms. Full bathtub, massive shower, seperate powder room, lounge room. About 80sqm all up. Sadly i also checked in late and left early.

Hotel was well located if you are flyng into or or out of Terminal 1 at MNL.

 

[Springthing]

Stayed at Sydney Hilton two nights ago. First time since the new exec lounge opened on L1.

Our room upgrade was actually a downgrade. It was to exec floor (L36) in the area where the old exec lounge was, and where they have now squeezed in more rooms. Our room was much smaller (narrower) than a normal king room. Room for only one suitcase, no work desk or work chair, just a small side table and chair, no lounge chair. You are squeezing between the end of the bed and the TV and the side table.

New exec lounge - another downgrade, smaller, no windows, like in a dungeon, noisier because it is just an open room with hard surfaces everywhere, food is worse, but the wines are still the same awful "Chain of ?". Might have to go the lobby bar option, but not mentioned at check-in.

I've echoed my HH loyalty disappointing experience regarding Sydney Hilton before, and it's just happened again. I stayed a few days ago too, hoping things had changed, but alas they haven't... My recent story is this - I had booked a lead-in room a few weeks ago for a single weekend night stay, which I know is busy. As a HH Diamond member, I received an automated upgrade (via email) to an executive room a few days out (no surprise), which, of course is a 'token' upgrade to just a higher level room (now ironically even further away from the lvl-1 exec lounge). Then the night before my stay, the room rate had dropped in price, so I cancelled and rebooked my original room type at the lower rate.

Great! money saved, but no further HH auto-upgrade was offered. I contacted the property via the HH app chat the day of check in, and was only offered a 'paid' upgrade as no further 'comp' upgrades were available, and I also asked at check in... And was told no comp upgrades available as "we are fully booked" which was complete BS... as several room higher types were still available in the app (do they not know we can check?)...

Ultimately, it's pretty clear the Sydney Hilton hotel management is making this 'poor' call, which is disappointing. I can only compare this to the far better experience I get all over South East Asia at HH properties.