Vaprozied? Is that like disappearing Prozac?

@hiltonHhonors? What is the extra "H" for?

@dorianh49: I believe it's for "Hilton Hotels"... Hilton Hotels Honors... honestly.

@TheMonkeyKing: Wow. It's "Vaporzied" on the front page. Double-spelling fail.

"didn't use her points for 12 months, per the Hilton Honors policy"

Policy, as in rules.

She shouldn't get them back.

@bogartbrown: I thought it stands for "Hardly"

I agree, the rules were available and she's at fault, BUT Hilton knows it is better business to keep a clearly loyal customer happy than to stick to the letter of the "law" in this case.

Couldn't Hilton simply send an email or courtesy letter to their customers at the 11-month mark to let them know their points are expiring?

@morganlh85: I think this is a great idea. It helps prevent situations like these and it could have the added benefit of a customer booking a weekend getaway so they can keep their points. Win/win.

@dorianh49: Herpes? Ohhhh, we're talking about the hotels... Not Paris... My mistake.

The big deal with reinstating the point when somone complains is that they are considered a company liability as far as the accountants are concerened.

If you have 1 billion points sitting live and in the open, and a 1 night stay costs 100k points (these numbers are for simple math and not accurate) thats 10,000 nights free in your farious hotels. If the average cost of a room is $100/night thats a 1 million dollars worth of liability. So yes, these rules are a big deal, and there is a reason for the deadline. Otherwise out of no where a company could end up taking a massive loss if people all decided to cash in at once.

Just to compare: my United miles are set to expire in December due to inactivity. I have received several emails from United alerting me to this fact (that also suggest ways to accrue points to keep the account active).

If United can do it, why not Hilton?

@allstarecho: yes she should, and she did.

This is slightly off topic, but every time I read the title of this article, I read it as "Paris Hilston Points". I think I've been brainwashed by gossip media.

@gfonner: Same for me w/ airline miles, they always have emailed me warning that the points expire after a year of inactivity.

@xtc46 - thinksmarter on twitter: All very true. Clearly, there's a good reason for the deadline.

But maybe if they weren't dicks, they could send a friggin' e-mail before they expired.

@morganlh85: In the previos post, others have indicated that Hilton does this. I am an HHonors member, and I receive about 2 e-mails from them per month advising me of special discounts and "bonus points" I can earn.

I would suspect that the E-mails either were caught by a SPAM filter or were sent to a no longer used E-mail account.

@xtc46 - thinksmarter on twitter:
I agree with you based on the accounting of it, but I think this is a very immaterial number to the books and can most likely be taken against the liability already on the books without causing a problem depending on how old the points are and what their policies are regarding the numbers. Better to keep customers happy so accountants can have a job dealing with these liability account issues.

@morganlh85:
Its clearly her fault.

This is wrong: "BUT Hilton knows it is better business to keep a clearly loyal customer happy than to stick to the letter of the "law" in this case."

Hilton actually knows its better business to keep the consumerist happy than the customer. Is the Consumerist going to post every time someone loses there points because my Delta points are going to expire soon and I would like to keep them...

@allstarecho: careful -- Consumerist will ban your account for saying something so honest but anti-consumer like that...

@supernova87a: Should Hilton have the policy in the first place?
If a cellphone provider writes in the contract that they have a right to your first born child, it is just policy correct?

My point is that just because something is policy or "the rules" doesn't make it right.

Everyone is saying that the customer is wrong in this case because rules are rules. Isn't the point of being a good business making rules that look out for the customer and not just your bottom line? Just because the policy states something doesn't make the policy correct.

@CompyPaq: Nobody has to enroll in a rewards program. If a person does, I think it's completely fair to expect them to adhere to each rule that's clearly spelled out in the terms and conditions. I also expect the company to follow through 100% on their end of the deal and to farily disclose all terms. The "use it once a year or lose your points" clause wasn't a secret. This customer agreed to the policy and then threw a tantrum when they lost their points for not holding up their end of the agreement.

It can't be more simple. Hilton gives you reward points for staying with them. If you don't use their hotels for a year, you don't get to be in the club anymore. If you're not in the club, your points are gone...

I called thinkgeek one time about some points that were about to expire. They were nice enough to extend them 6 months and gave me a couple 100 extra as incentive to use them.

(btw, the Utili-Key is the most awesome gadget for it's size)

@gfonner: I think you're making a pretty big leap. You're assuming that the customer that paid so little attention that they let their points lapse will keep their email address updated on their Hilton account...

@allstarecho:

Hilton didn't HAVE to do so.

But doing so is good PR.

@Bob Lu: That's why I stay at Hilton properties, they take care of you.

@brettshow: I think 1 year is a sufficient amount of time to spend a reward granted to you. If you arent spending enough with the company to accrue enough points to warrent a reward, then pissing you off isnt that big of a deal since you arent giving them all that much business anyway.

@Hawkins: This, I agree with. But I get monthy emails from hilton and united (my frequent flyer miles) letting me know how many points I have, and when I log in to my account I can see when they expire.

The issue with telling somone when points is going to expire is every month they would get an email that says "on blah blah x points will expire" and every month the people will delete the emails and still get mad they werent warned. (I work as a systems admin and trust me, people dont read these emails 90% of the time, or they glance at their total and move on)

@CompyPaq: No, being a good business means making sure you are profitable. Limiting your liabilities is a good way to stay profitable long term.

Being customer friendly is a way to keep customers happy, which gets you money, but its a balance. You cant just give customers everything they want, or you will go broke, so you need to set limits. is 1 year not long enough to allow somone to use a reward they earned? It's just like a coupon having an expiration date.

When a customer was upset, they fixed it. But the other 100k people who lost points (like me) dont give a crap becasue I didnt use them, and had no intention of using them any time soon.

@Coyote: Well, thank you for reminding me to check and it seems I lost my 2,350 points last year. I had ordered stuff in July 2007 and they expired in Aug 2008. Granted, in Dec 2007 they sent a reminder email to tell me about things I could use them for. But I received no email in July 2008 saying, "hey, you've got a month before you loose them." And that would have been nice. But so be it. When I have the chance to order from them again, I will put my own reminder in my Palm Pilot to check on them every month.

(btw, the 15" Gigantor Digital Photo Frame has me wishing I could afford it [and it's on sale for $150], but food trumps photo frame when you're unemployed).

@xtc46 - thinksmarter on twitter: A run on the hotels...really? Thought I understand your point about outstanding liabilities, the scenario you describe is so unlikely as to be ridiculous, and a silly reason not to work with a customer who requests leniency.

@xtc46 - thinksmarter on twitter:But the other 100k people who lost points (like me) dont give a crap becasue I didnt use them, and had no intention of using them any time soon.

And that's on you. That's also why I'm not crying wet, drippy tears for Hilton on this one. They'll live, because of customers who don't care about their HHonors Points, like you.

Well ya know, it costs money to run them there points databases, it's not like Modern huge multi-server Microsoft SQL or Oracle databases can keep records for more than 1 year right? /sarcasm

This is just another stoopid policy put forth by greedy ass executives looking for another way to nickel and dime consumers by minimizing value of what they get for their money.

@downwithmonstercable: You don't get any points for Paris Hilton. She's considered public domain.

@Duke_Newcombe (now with 50% more feigned interest):

Risk has nothing to do with it. On the books, it is still a liability. Thats 1 Million in owed money. You dont get to put "we owe 1million...but there is an 80% chance that we will never have to pay it back" on your balance sheet.

And they DO work with people to get the points back (she got her point back). The initial CSRs said "nope sorry" she persued the issue (via consumerist) and they gave her what she wanted.

@Duke_Newcombe (now with 50% more feigned interest): They'll live becasue they made the business decison to not let points become an infinent liability. Which is exactly what should happen. They have a policy, they enforce it, and in an extreme case they made an exception. Thats good business.

@Areyouagoodlittleconsumer: No, its an accounting thing. When you owe people a reward with a dollar value, on the books, you owe money. That money is a liability, so they limit that liability by putting an exiration date on it.

Imagine yourself as a small business owner. You think "oh...I have a great idea Im going to hand out coupons for free meals" and you dont put an experation date on those. Now, you owe those free meals forever. Until everyone of those is cashed, they are each a liability to you. Had you put a 1 year expiration on them, at the end of the year, you can say that liability no longer exists (it has expired). So its more than just not wanting to keep the data (altho more data = more storage space = more money, etc) so that does play into it, but not nearly as much as just knowing how much money your company has at a given time.

@xtc46 - thinksmarter on twitter: A little off topic, but your use of the word "farious" made me giggle, as my mind mentally completed it to "nefarious hotels" and I pictured a Hilton hotel glaring down at me.

@gfonner: Heads up that I believe you can use a very small amount of miles for a magazine subscription or to order flowers for someone through the United Mall, and that will reset your expiration clock.

I thought she was a dude with a froo froo name...turns out she's a she with a made up name. Any Latreshas or Andis out there?

@secret_curse: The world is not a rational, black and white place. When you take something from me, even if I've given you permission to do so, it sucks and it feels unfair. Nobody enjoys having the Repo Man take their stuff away.

Apparently Hilton has decided that it's worth alienating prior (and potentially future customers) via the Repo Man effect regardless of how loyal the customer has been in the past.

By publicizing this matter, I hope Hilton reconsiders their policies to make them more consumer friendly. Isn't that a good enough reason to "throw a tantrum"?

@xtc46 - thinksmarter on twitter: If implementing a customer-friendly rewards program is such a huge accounting problem, why bother in the first place? Why wouldn't they just lower the room rates?

My guess it that people irrationally value rewards points more than they're worth. In order words, they're tricking you into thinking you're getting a better deal than you are. If difficult accounting is the price to pay for tricking people, then they are causing their own headache.

There are ways to earn points without staying at the hotel. There are also rewards that could take more than year to save up for.

So your idea might be to save up for that $1000 cruise reward while spending money on your rewards CC, but after a year they reset your points. So despite being in a rewards program with your CC, you have to spend money at the hotel once a year to reach your goal of a getting a cruise. How does that make sense?