Starwood Preferred Guest - Bumped from Four Points Munich before I arrive!

I need some advice please...

Yesterday I booked a room over the December/January period at the Four Points by Sheraton in Munich. I chose this hotel for two reasons; I want to be close to the city center, and I plan to catch the train to and from MUC. (I have an early departure from MUC and want to be close to a direct train line.)

Today I received an e-mail from the ArabellaSheraton Grand Hotel stating that they have changed my booking to their hotel because the Four Points is closed from Dec.19 to Jan.12.

I'm a little surprised that SPG.com still accepts reservations at Four Points when no rooms are available during this time. However, my questions are these:

Since I will be traveling by public transport to and from MUC, how convenient is the ArabellaSheraton Grand Hotel to a direct train service? I see that the hotel is not very close to Munchen-HBF or Marienplatz, is it off the beaten track of tourist haunts?

Should I be making alternative accommodation arrangements closer to the city center?

Any comments/thoughts appreciated.

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Latitudes.

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)

The ArabellaSheraton Grand Hotel is about 1000 times nicer than the four points, so if they are honoring your rate I'd stay at the Grand and take a taxi to the train station. If cost is an issue there is a tram line that goes to the Grand and terminates there. Not sure of the route number, but I'm sure you can find it on the web.

Consider this too: redeem points for the 4 pts (a Cat 1) at 2K (WKEND) or 3K (WKDAY) and watch yourself be bumped up a day or 2 later for free to the Grand (Cat. 4) which takes 7K pts anyday. This happened to me, but now I need to cancel out on this sweet windfall. There is a U4 station near the Grand, making it a short hop to the train to MUC.

[This message has been edited by dldkjones (edited Dec 18, 2003).]

1.) I would express my disappointment about the change and try to get some compensation for the troubles. I'd take the AS Grand (for the same rate). The AS Grand is really a nice hotel.
Pictures:
http://www.e-traveller.net/lh738/triprep/03muc/muc-arabellasheratongrand-stay030630.html

2.) The ArabellaSheraton can be reached by public transport from the main station: take underground U4 from main station towards Arabellapark and exit at Richard-Strauss-Straße or at ArabellaPark (5min walk from both exits). The U4 has a frequency of 10min (less frequency in the late evening) and is about 15min from main station.
Another possibility from airport MUC: use the LH airport bus which stops at Nordfriedhof and at Hauptbahnhof. Then take a taxi from Nordfiredhof to the ArabellaSheraton Grand (the bus driver can call a taxi). This option is faster.
map for public transport (http://www.mvv-muenchen.de/archiv/objects/pictures/1/netz03(A4).pdf)

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Pictures from hotel stays (http://www.e-traveller.net/lh738/triprep/hotel.php)
Basic Hotel stays/nights/points calculator (http://www.e-traveller.net/fgp/fgp01calc.php)
Short overview: KLM FD, LH M&M (http://www.e-traveller.net/ffp/kl01.php)

[This message has been edited by LH738 (edited Dec 19, 2003).]

Thanks everyone for your great ideas. FlyerTalk is truly a great resource.

Happy Holidays!

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Latitudes.

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)

I had the exact same thing happen to me last year - I booked an award stay for Dec 30, 2002 - Jan 2, 2003 at the Four Points Munich and had my reservations moved to the ArabellaSheraton Grand Hotel. I got the rooms at the Four Points rate.

No complaints from me - a much nicer hotel for the same price. Location wasn't quite as good, but still good enough.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Latitudes:
I need some advice please...

Yesterday I booked a room over the December/January period at the Four Points by Sheraton in Munich. I chose this hotel for two reasons; I want to be close to the city center, and I plan to catch the train to and from MUC. (I have an early departure from MUC and want to be close to a direct train line.)

Today I received an e-mail from the ArabellaSheraton Grand Hotel stating that they have changed my booking to their hotel because the Four Points is closed from Dec.19 to Jan.12.
</font>


I too booked this miserable "hotel" for the same reasons as you did-- downtown location and good rail access to MUC Flughafen.

The good news (though it may not seem like it) is that the hotel will be closed during your stay so you won't have to stay there.

Please see

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum74/HTML/007427.html

for how they treated us when we attempted to stay there last June.

As far as I'm concerned, this hotel should be expelled from the Starwood constellation and management launched into a different galaxy. Starwood really does need a more centrally located (and properly run) property in Munich.

As others have pointed out the Arabella Sheraton Grand is a much, much nicer property and delightful-- both in terms of physical features as well as customer service (which is unknown to us at the 4 Points).

Even after complaining to Starwood Corporate (White Plains) about the 4 Points, the management at the 4 Points insisted that they provided more than adequate customer service. They actually lied to Starwood Corporate when they claimed they offered to help us rebook at another MUC hotel when we refused to crowd into one bed!

Feh!

The only disappointing aspects of the Sheraton were: 1) the rather remote from center city location 2) the anemic Platinum amenity (bottle of sparkling water) and 3) holiday club lounge closure. The latter two are minor compared to the first.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Latitudes:

Today I received an e-mail from the ArabellaSheraton Grand Hotel stating that they have changed my booking to their hotel because the Four Points is closed from Dec.19 to Jan.12.
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You are a lucky guy, girl.
The Grand is far better than the 4 Points, and the area around the (Hauptbahnhof) train station is not so great ...