2020 Summer Olympics: All Hilton Hotels in Tokyo Show as “Sold Out” – Will it Last?

Well, this was something that we may have expected but I honestly had hoped it would just be that rates were much higher (yet still bookable with the invisible points ceiling since there are no blackout dates). Instead, Hilton decided to remove their lot of rooms in Tokyo from their inventory for the 2020 Summer Olympics. This means they are likely selling them to distributors and those putting packages together. Hyatt has done the same thing…

2020 Summer Olympics: All Hilton Hotels in Tokyo Show as “Sold Out”

Link: Hilton Hotels

Hilton Hotels opens up availability for their hotels one year in advance. There used to be a nice trick that would let you pick the furtherest day out, select flexible dates, and then you could just slide your potential reservation search another 6 months ago. That would have been very valuable for this!

Unfortunately, as soon as availability opened for the 2020 Summer Olympics (it opened up last week), I pulled it up to check and was disappointed to find that they had marked every single one of their 5 Tokyo hotels as being sold out. I contacted Hilton as well just to make sure and had two people tell me that the hotels are not sold out but they have also not released rates for those dates.

This could mean that they blocked out those dates and are handling deals with distributors or others and want to wait before releasing them on the website. Or it could mean that they are really sold out.

What About the Hilton Diamond 48 Hour Guarantee?

Hilton does have a 48 hour guarantee available to Diamond members. This allows Diamond members to reserve a room at a sold out hotel as long as the reservation is made 48 hours ahead of time. While it would be very expensive (it would be the rack rate), if someone really wanted a room, it is the way to go. However, even signing in through the Diamond account, it does not show any Diamond guarantee at all.

However, as readers commented in this post, Hilton does have a track record of just not making such rooms available whenever they feel like it. I am not surprised that they don’t feel like it during a major world event like the Olympics.

Will There Be Hilton Rooms Available?

The reps I spoke with said to try again in a couple of weeks. I seriously doubt that this will change anything. They can see from their computers that the hotels are not sold out yet the hotels are showing as being sold out to prevent any outside reservations being made.

However, there are always cancellations that are made or contracts that fall through so definitely keep checking as there should be something that opens up, especially as the Olympics get very close.

When that does happen, you will want to have points available! Hilton points are very easy to get and they can be very valuable when you want a room bad enough. This is because you can use points on any room/suite in the hotel – even if you will get far less than market value for redeeming for a suite. The cost will be high but it will be nice to still be able to book a room using just points that may have cost as much as $1,000 or more per night!

Also, I will be checking regularly and will put out a post the moment I see availability showing up.

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