The Main Issue With The New Hilton Breakfast Program? Hotels Aren’t Following The Rules!

I just returned from a stay at a Hilton Garden Inn, where they applied the $10 per person credit for my son and I against the cost of the breakfast buffet. Trouble was he is 8 and they charged me the adult price. When I pointed it out to the hostess who processed the check, she told me that it was only applied to adult price (and not the kids), which was 2x the price. It seems she was told to do that from her manager. When I politely pushed back to say the credit is per person regardless of the age, she called him and they adjusted it.

We stayed at a Conrad gor 2 nights. We were so annoyed as they only allowed Room Service had to pay room delivery fee, 22% tip, tax and paid $25.00 over the $50.00 credit just 2 eggs and coffees. No other options offered. It was way overpriced.

I’ve been Diamond for years. Now, I’m staying at IHG properties as they have valet parking, room service, full service restaurants, full breakfast, and daily housekeeping. ALL of which Hilton has largely eliminated globally. The breakfast I’ve experieced at various Hilton properties was a bagel and a bottle of water. Dinner? That was three different sandwiches or microwave pizza at a ‘restaurant’ serving to-go only. Just awful for formerly full service hotels. I’ve found that Crowne Plazas (even Holiday Inns) are providing a full service hotel whereas Hiltons, Doubletrees, and Embassy Suites are just a glorified motel at this point. I used to just to go hilton’s web site to make all my reservations. These days, you must call to each individual hotel to determine what is cut from the advertised services.

Don’t understand how a “continental breakfast” is worth $15-$25?
Cup of coffee in styrofoam cup with instant eggs and potatoes and make yourself 2 pieces of white toast? Your talking about Motel 6 or Roof Inn. Nobody will give you $25.00 in lieu of continental breakfast.

I would take the money also.

Yes I have had issues on all of my stays so far. It just doesn’t come off automatically and they forget to remove it so I have to ask them to manually remove the charge. Also they told me it was per day (not night) and that it would work for the grab and go but it did not.

Why is this a surprise to anyone?

Given all of the antics that we read about, might this even be intentional? Oops, sorry. We must do better staff training on this.

Applied to you, perhaps it is $50 per day. To the specific property, perhaps it is $5,000 per day — or, $1.8 million per year.

There’s huge financial incentive for a specific property to “accidentally” get the breakfast credit wrong.

Been totally depressed the past several hours, but your getting $50 cause you said two people while just you made me chuckle. Thanks!
Like you, Tom, and many others I do this! 🙂

You people are stupid to keep booking these hotels… you’re playing right into their hands… the only way to stop this stupidity is to STOP staying at these places altogether. They are trying trying save money… until it actually costs them money they will continue to play these games. Suckers.

At a Doubletree last month that only gave us $12 for 2 people. Guess they were confused. I will reach out to the Twitter team to see if they will advise the hotel.

Hilton in Denver didn’t have a functioning restaurant, so told us the credit would apply to the Starbucks in the lobby, and manager said we could order anything and get reimbursed up to the credit. Starbucks staff weren’t aware of any of this, had to pay Starbucks separately then fight with next day’s staff who refused to give us the credit. Staff at Santa Fe Hilton didn’t know if the credit rolled over, or was calendar day, or up to check out time (had 3 day stay). Yes, they goofed it on checkout as well. In years of using free breakfast benefit of being Diamond, I never once had an issue. This isn’t about flexibility, this is using the pandemic to cut costs and let individual hotels figure out how to apply it.

You should be good with $50 credit at Waldorf Astoria Vegas. I used it in July without a problem. In fact, I should have used $250 Hilton resort credit too toward food/beverage but didn’t ugh.

This reminds me of an equally pitiful problem which AMC Theatres had several years ago (before it changed its loyalty program to being based on a fee). On the original program, the beverage voucher I received after paying for a certain number of films was of real value to me because I often become thirsty in a screening.

Even though AMC’s hard cost is EXACTLY THE SAME and the raw materials come from the same supplier, AMC limited the beverage to soda pop, excluding Hi-C Fruit Punch. Was I picking nits because I don’t drink soda? No way because the dispenser (soda fountain) was the same! It merely was 1 slot over from Coca-Cola and drew from the neighboring tanks.

Penny wise and pound idiotic!

I predict that the Hilton Honors program will revert to the old approach but not until 2025. In the meantime, I appreciate your advice.

Similar experience at Crocksfords Vegas – had to ask at checkout for breakfast buffet (The Kitchen) bill to be removed (btw, avoid The Kitchen – its so generic and not worth it). Also, the tip portion was not allowed as part of the credit. Aside, customer service from Crocksfords front desk was superb!

During a July over the road to Florida trip we stayed at 4 different Hilton properties that had a restaurant onsite (1 HGI, 2 DT, 1 HH) and NOT ONE gave me the proper credit (let alone recognize my status). When I checked in, I confirmed the credit and was told each time, there is nothing I have to do, the credit will be applied.

I had to contact each hotel after receiving the “final folio” after checkout to get a refund of the difference in the food charge and the credit.

And always remember to make the reservation for 2 even if you are travelling alone !