Velocity Reward Certificate Not Accepted By Hilton Melbourne

[startrek]

Got a Velocity Reward Certificate for accommodation at Hilton Melbourne Airport - called up hotel reservations only to be told that Hilton had "never heard of Velocity Rewards" - emailed Velocity Home regarding the problem on 3 occasions over past 10 days without a single solitary response.

 

[markis10]

Got a Velocity Reward Certificate for accommodation at Hilton Melbourne Airport - called up hotel reservations only to be told that Hilton had "never heard of Velocity Rewards" - emailed Velocity Home regarding the problem on 3 occasions over past 10 days without a single solitary response. Pathetic customer service and will cost Virgin dearly as my private company have used Virgin exclusively for years and are about to lose a substantial account because they chose to treat a little guy with distain - I bet if I had used my business name they would have done handsprings to sort the issue. Too late now! Be aware!

Why did you not just pick up the phone and call Velocity, emails are never reliable. I just rang them and got an operator in three rings, that pretty good cusotmer service.

 

[startrek]

Called them twice and spent 10 minutes listening to non-human stuff.

 

[NYCguy]

Pathetic customer service and will cost Virgin dearly as my private company have used Virgin exclusively for years and are about to lose a substantial account because they chose to treat a little guy with distain - I bet if I had used my business name they would have done handsprings to sort the issue.

Can I ask why you didn't use your business name? If your company has a substantial spend with DJ, surely your relationship manager would be more than happy to sort something out if your entire account is at risk?

Perhaps your company might not spend AU$1M a year on fares; I don't know, you might, in which case I'd be calling a senior executive to get it sorted; but one would think that they'd be keen to preserve their relationship with you, if only to keep you on-side as your business develops.

 

[dajop]

- called up hotel reservations only to be told that Hilton had "never heard of Velocity Rewards" -

Did you get through to the hotel's in house reservations, or were you shunted to somewhere on the other side of the world? If the latter I wouldn't expect them to have heard of Velocity. If the former I'd expect better than that.

 

[anat0l]

Did you get through to the hotel's in house reservations, or were you shunted to somewhere on the other side of the world? If the latter I wouldn't expect them to have heard of Velocity. If the former I'd expect better than that.

Actually, there should be no excuse altogether.

Velocity (Virgin Blue) is clearly listed in the list of airline programs HHonors and subsequently Hilton should recognise.

What they probably might not know is that you can pay for a Hilton stay with certificates obtained by exchanging Velocity points. Why Hilton should have to know this is stupid. The system should just involve Velocity negotiating pre-approved stay vouchers/certificates in exchange for their "currency" of Velocity points. When the stay certificate is presented to Hilton, all they have to know it's good enough for them; how the OP got the certificate should be completely irrelevant.

In other words, the entire system from Velocity to Hilton is a SNAFU.

In saying all this, though, as you mentioned, dajop, a better chance at affirmative action could have been obtained through calling the hotel directly rather than the number supplied by the Velocity Rewards page.