Legal Commentary

Heads Up: If you are planning to use any Hilton Honors / United promotions -- such as the current Hawaii promotion to earn double Mileage Plus miles, a 10,000 HHonors bonus, and receive a free bathrobe (see 411 here) -- be sure your Hilton account is set up so that you are earning both UAL miles and points.

Despite numerous attempts to confirm that I had met all necessary requirements before we arrived in Hawaii  -- and nightmare reservations problems bringing 11 members of my family to Honolulu for my father's memorial -- Hilton has refused to process the UAL promotion miles -- because they said I had not clicked on the "miles and points" option on my HHonors account. They did credit me with the Hilton bonus points, and I got lots of apologies, but they won't credit the UAL miles -- and we're talking 10,062 miles here.

I'm stunned -- and furious. I did everything humanly possible to verify that I had complied with the fine print. I'm no naif when it comes to travel -- after all, I'm the daughter of a United pilot and flight attendant -- and both a Diamond Hilton Honors member and  Premier Executive member of UAL Mileage Plus! NOBODY at Hilton told me I had to have the account set up for both UAL miles and Hilton points to qualify. Nobody.

I expected an easy, fast resolution. But no way -- I've now spent numerous hours appealing this -- all the way up to the top customer service representative -- with no luck.

Talk about lousy customer service. I brought 11 people to Hawaii for 5 days, and we spent a lot of money at the Honolulu Embassy Suites Beach Walk. I've been an astoundingly loyal Hilton Honors member, and this makes me question whether I should bag that loyalty and go back to choosing Hyatt. (That will be particularly difficult in Baltimore.) So much for elite status.

I'm going to appeal this to United, because they are co-sponsors of the promotion. Will keep you posted on what United says. Hopefully, they will have more common sense than Hilton just demonstrated. I didn't even get the dumb bathrobe. But I don't want clothes, I just want my United miles.