Starwood Preferred Guest - Platinum Concierge now defunct...??

It was posted in another thread that the Platinum Concierge is now defunct.... is this true..? I could swear I got an email from my personal concierge about 10 days ago...

I spoke to my concierge two days ago. No mention of them going away, and he was very helpful, like usual.

Thank goodness.... good to hear. William, could you please confirm this? Thanks.

Gaucho - could you post a link to the thread? Was that post from someone, or SPG representation?

We have seen a decrease in the staffing of the concierges as some of our calls go to a more generic guest services number.

I used my concierge only 15 minutes ago - they're still there alive and kicking in Cork... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Mine helped me out on Weds. The phone line was dead, though.

I believe what you may be experiencing are the extreme cost cutting in staff At Starwood Preferred Guest which has not been discussed to much here in the past.This all seemed to start after Sept 11th.
After the closing of the Salt Lake City office ands its superb group of agents and supervisors. Austin was never able to fully fill in the void left by the closing.This is in no way to say that the talent and customer service isn't
also generally exceptional,kind and friendly because it is.Just unable to make up the difference.
Neither has Pa or the California centers been able to measure up as fully.
More likely you will end up with a rep after longer call hold times saying special member services.Or get bounced to Europe.They have certainly tried to phase out some portion of the Platinum Agent guest services or at the very least scale it back.The other res centers will try and help you and sometimes they do and are usually most kind and polite
But as sorry as I am to say it.Starwoods overall level of service for this guest has never been the same since Salt Lake City closed.
Off topic here Great rates seem tougher then ever to find and rack rates so artifically high that the 50 % off part of the program is unuseable in cities like Los Angeles Nothing there to do with Platinum guest service of course.Since 1999 Rack rates have almost doubled .Luckily they didn't at other hotels like Hyatt & Hilton.My business will go down this year considerably as they try and squeeze more out of us each and every stay through higher rates.
Not that this will hurt Starwood and there chances for a Freddie.With still
the best award redemption in the industry and 5 k bonus on transfers most Spg loyalists
in my opinion will once again make Starwood the runaway winner more then likely again this year as last.
Happy Safe travels all


[This message has been edited by 777 global mile hound (edited 04-22-2002).]

What used to distinguish the SPG Plat. Concierge from other hotel programs was the lack of any voicemail message or holding on the phone. You could speak with a Concierge quickly.

Now, we must listen to some prattle about how we can book on line (as if we didn't know this) before being connected.

Once while calling, this recorded loop just would not end. For that call I had to hang up and redial again.

Concierge availability today is certainly not as good as when the SLC office was open.

I do miss the relationship that developed with the prior two concierges I had from SLC. Maybe they are just overworked now in Austin? But (not that the current one has done anything wrong or have I asked him for much) but its just missing that extra effort/touch. Today, however, I just made a call to SPG Plat. and got a very nice rep who booked a fwee fwiday (prior to posting of the last stay but after the stay) combined with an SPG50 award in one simple call with no issues, questions, problems, etc. and a confirming email within a couple mins of getting off the phone.

The Platinum Concierge office in Salt Lake City is now closed - and has been for a while. Other than that, it's business as usual. We are still hoping to open it up in Lancaster, Calfornia to make up for losing the Salt Lake office the last I heard.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Specialist, E-Communications Department
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

guest.forum@starwoodhotels.com

[This message has been edited by Starwood Lurker (edited 04-23-2002).]

William-

I had a lot of trouble connecting to the plat desk from Fri-Sun. Your lines were apparently down. When I called the gold desk, they told me that they had a lot of complaints about that. Is it fixed yet?

The whole system seemed to be down, and the Web sites were all being updated on Sunday.

Could've been just routine maintenace.

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