Flying Buccaneer
Sep 13, 10, 2:49 am
Mr. FB and I spent one night here after our TPA-MIA-LAX-SYD-AKL itinerary spanning 45 hours. I booked the room using 15000 PC points.
Finding the shuttle for the hotel required asking someone at the airport where to go. Following the "Hotel Transfers" sign will take you to the wrong place. The shuttle leaves from the same place as the other airport buses into Auckland. The shuttle leaves every 30 minutes, so we only had to wait about 10 minutes. Airport transfers are NZ$10/person return and can be billed to the room.
We arrived a little after midnight. The fellow who checked us in offered no greeting. When I handed him my AMEX, PC Platinum card, passport, and slips from the shuttle, he merely pushed the PC card and passport back to me. Then he wrote "+$20" on our folio and gave us transfers for the trip back to the airport.
We had booked a "King Leisure Room" with points. Before he gave me keys to the room, he looked at Mr. FB and me and said, “You are booked into a king leisure room but I can give you a room with two twin beds.” I told him that we wanted the king bed and he said, “Are you sure?” I said, "Yes," and he gave us the keys and my AMEX.
Before going to the room, I asked if I was entitled to any amenity as a platinum. His reply? “You have a mini-bar and coffee and tea facilities in your room.” There was no place nearby to purchase a bottle of water, so the mini-bar was the only option.
Room 1050 was nice, and the bed was comfortable. The room did indeed have coffee/tea making facilities (which we used), and a mini-bar (which we did not).
About 9 hours after checking in, we checked out. Check out took awhile, because there were a few people buying shuttle tickets. The young lady who assisted me with check out was very friendly. I would have much rather had her check us in the evening before. However, she had no record that we had used points for the room. I had to provide my printed confirmation. It's been two weeks since we checked out, so I assume everything was fine.
A couple of days later, I addressed my concerns to IHC about the stay, including the attitude of the fellow at check in and the confusion over payment for the room. A little over a week later, I received this reply from the Revenue Manager:
Dear Flying Buccaneer,
Thank you for contacting our guest relations team with regards to your recent stay at Holiday Inn Auckland Airport.
Please accept my sincere apologies and do let me know if I could be of any further assistance.
Kind Regards.
XXX XXX
Revenue Manager
Even though Accor's loyalty program is about as underwhelming as the apology letter, I will stay at the AKL Novotel when it is completed instead of returning to the HI if I ever need to spend a night at AKL in the future.
Finding the shuttle for the hotel required asking someone at the airport where to go. Following the "Hotel Transfers" sign will take you to the wrong place. The shuttle leaves from the same place as the other airport buses into Auckland. The shuttle leaves every 30 minutes, so we only had to wait about 10 minutes. Airport transfers are NZ$10/person return and can be billed to the room.
We arrived a little after midnight. The fellow who checked us in offered no greeting. When I handed him my AMEX, PC Platinum card, passport, and slips from the shuttle, he merely pushed the PC card and passport back to me. Then he wrote "+$20" on our folio and gave us transfers for the trip back to the airport.
We had booked a "King Leisure Room" with points. Before he gave me keys to the room, he looked at Mr. FB and me and said, “You are booked into a king leisure room but I can give you a room with two twin beds.” I told him that we wanted the king bed and he said, “Are you sure?” I said, "Yes," and he gave us the keys and my AMEX.
Before going to the room, I asked if I was entitled to any amenity as a platinum. His reply? “You have a mini-bar and coffee and tea facilities in your room.” There was no place nearby to purchase a bottle of water, so the mini-bar was the only option.
Room 1050 was nice, and the bed was comfortable. The room did indeed have coffee/tea making facilities (which we used), and a mini-bar (which we did not).
About 9 hours after checking in, we checked out. Check out took awhile, because there were a few people buying shuttle tickets. The young lady who assisted me with check out was very friendly. I would have much rather had her check us in the evening before. However, she had no record that we had used points for the room. I had to provide my printed confirmation. It's been two weeks since we checked out, so I assume everything was fine.
A couple of days later, I addressed my concerns to IHC about the stay, including the attitude of the fellow at check in and the confusion over payment for the room. A little over a week later, I received this reply from the Revenue Manager:
Dear Flying Buccaneer,
Thank you for contacting our guest relations team with regards to your recent stay at Holiday Inn Auckland Airport.
Please accept my sincere apologies and do let me know if I could be of any further assistance.
Kind Regards.
XXX XXX
Revenue Manager
Even though Accor's loyalty program is about as underwhelming as the apology letter, I will stay at the AKL Novotel when it is completed instead of returning to the HI if I ever need to spend a night at AKL in the future.