If I understand the program correctly, if you have no activity for one year, your account is deactivated and your points are lost to cyberspace, never to be returned. Does this not sound like a few airlines, which I refuse to fly as well?
MY CASE: received a new Hilton Silver VIP card in Oct. 2008. Went to redeem points Feb. 24th, 2009 to learn "sorry you have not had any activity in over a year. Your points are gone." Well needless to say, that is the last time I ever stay at a Hilton property. Be careful out there...
X, ILLINOIS -- Hilton must have more customers and members than they need. As a Diamond member with almost 600,000 pts., I am walking away from them. The planned vacation of a lifetime was wrecked when they jacked us around on room selection... accepted the level I requested; but checking the confirmation, the room was not what I had requested. They won't budge. That's OK, I am transferring all my HH points to an airline, closing my HH account and signing up with another hotel chain.
To try to save some money; I pre-paid a Hilton Garden Inn in Chattanooga for a customer meeting. The customer changed the site to Knoxville. I called Hilton to see if we can work it out to transfer the prepaid to a hotel in Knoxville. THEY wouldn't even discuss it, wouldn't try to work with me nothing. So I hope that $157 was worth it to them, because the thousands I spend every year as a Gold member will now go to Marriott.