Hilton Garden Inn Charlotte Waverly, NC in Charlotte

A comedy of errors at all levels (2 stars): We invited family in for the Thanksgiving holiday and provided for three nights nearby at the Hilton Garden Inn Charlotte. We chose for one of the nights each to apply one free night award (because we met a spending requirement with our Hilton branded Amex); for another night applied our accumulated points from stays; and then pay out of pocket for one night. We had similarly reserved a hotel under Marriott a few months ago and it worked relatively smoothly. This turned out to be a very convoluted process under Hilton as we were required to set up three separate reservations for the three different types of payment methods. The representative at Hilton reservations struggled and had to redo the booking multiple times; it took about 40 minutes and 9 email messages to finalize what under Marriott was a comparatively straightforward reservation.

To make sure the complicated Hilton reservation was understandable, we accompanied our family members to check-in and explained it to the staff member at the front desk and she understood that this was essentially a single three-night reservation and it should be treated as such. We introduced our family members and gave the Hilton representative their name. We assumed there was some type of message that was embedded into the reservation so that other staff would understand, but nothing could be further from the truth. We received a call the following day that we needed to stop by the front desk again and check out and check in again and have the entry cards replaced. We again explained the situation and made clear that this was a ridiculous way to structure the reservation given that the only difference was the differing payment methods. That is a Hilton back-office process and should not make any difference for the hotel guest. There is also a straightforward process given our Gold status there was a breakfast credit and it is supposed to be applied each day to any charges. That same day the Hilton staff could not manage this process either and a heated discussion ensued between a front desk staff member and the food and beverage employee managing the breakfast. Our family members ended up getting charged for breakfast without consideration for the credit.

After a long Thanksgiving family celebration, we dropped off our family members at the hotel and returned home. Sadly, our family members were treated miserably when they could not enter their room. The front desk staff said that our family members were forcibly checked out as there was no reservation for a third night. When asked where their belongings were the front desk staff said they did not know. Rather than giving key cards to our family members to check if their items were in the room, they were escorted by Hilton staff to the room where the room was cleaned and the belongings were there. The staff also said it would be $250 for them to stay Thanksgiving night, which would be due immediately, even though there was a third night already reserved with points that were drawn out of our account. Our family members explained the whole situation to us the next morning as we picked them up to take them to the airport. We were furious and explained the situation to the staff at the front desk. We had to explain the entire situation to James who was working at the front desk, as there obviously was no transfer of the details for the reservation. We had to go to the airport given the pending flight, but we returned and explained in detail to James what happened and he pulled up the three separate reservations and pieced it together. James called us later that day and ultimately apologized and admitted there was “a lack of communication on our part.” The understatement of the year! He had the $250 credited to our family members credit card for the night and the credit for breakfast was resolved.