PointWeasel

Not that I'm being cynical, but me thinks that the fact I complained via Corporate directly may have had something to do with it.

I'll post when I see the adjustments/credits appear.

PointWeasel

Thanks for the heads up! I'll keep watch. As of today the credit on the Amex has still not shown up which is a bit odd if he indeed did it on the day we spoke. I'll give it until Monday/Tuesday before I begin to get concerned.

Does anyone know how long it should take for an award recredit and the goodwill points to post?

KENNECTED

didn't call me either, nor did CCS!

I had one heater in my room, one in the bathroom to take a shower. It's Miami for Goodness sakes

PointWeasel

The mystery deepens...just checked my Visa statement (the one that's in my SPG profile online) and there is another charge from this location for $50 even. This amount doesn't show up on the joint folio and I have no idea what the heck it is for. I called Corporate again this afternoon and she did confirm that *wood has received and is processing the 7K points for recredit and goodwill which will take 7 - 10 business days. The refund however she was going to look into since it has not been done as yet.

She called back 30 mins later to say that the hotel was "looking into it" and would investigate the additional $50 charge that mysteriously appeared. All in all quite the debacle.

Darren

Too funny. Apparently SPG believes this hotel to be a category 4 now, presumably based on its rave reviews from all its clientèle.

PointWeasel

Category 4 for this dump?!?! That's nuts. The Westin in Whistler is a Category 4 which seems reasonable - I am booked on 2 award nights there this weekend.

PointWeasel

Well, it took some prodding but the Amex credit showed up with a transaction date of 08FEB07 and the Visa credit for $50 showed up dated 06FEB07. The aggravation is finally over but almost 2 weeks later, SPG has still not recredited the award nor the 7K goodwill points either.

PointWeasel

So after many, many phone calls and return calls from the St Thomas Starwood Corporate CS Offices, a supervisor yesterday apologized for the delay in the 7K x 2 points being posted and credit a total of 16K points to clear the matter up. Before I spoke to this supervisor I got put thru to the Cork, Ireland call centre and they, were well, telling me a totally different story; 3 weeks for points to be recredited, hotel would do them manually, etc

All in all, not a fun experience.

tarau

Does any one have any suggestions on how to handle a situation we have with Sheraton Four Points in Miami Beach?
We had a incident at the hotel on Feb. 26, 2007 where, shortly after going to bed and turning off the lights in the hotel room, we heard a loud bang on our window and carefully pulled back the drapes to find what appeared to be a bullet hole in the window. The glass was shattered and we were frightened beyond belief. We do not know what caused the window to break - a bullet? a pellet gun? a rock? a bird? Regardless of the cause, we were frightened and asked to be moved to a new room, for obvious reasons.
After 2 hours of dealing with hotel staff saying things to us such as, "Could have been a stray bullet from the street", "good thing you are going home tomorrow", "this is really bad, one of you could really have been hurt", "if I were you, I would sleep on the floor tonight", etc, we were finally moved to another room. The police were called and the officer seemed to think it was caused by a bird, which seemed questionable to us at the time, since it was 12:45 am when it occurred.
After about 2 hours, we were finally moved to a smaller room (we had a junior suite to begin with), and were charged for a junior suite as well.
When we spoke with the assistant manager the morning after, she treated us as if we were an inconvience to her. We have tried repeatedly for the last month to get in contact with the General Manager, and that has been unsuccessful.
At the VERY least, we would like an apology for our inconvenience and would like to not be charged for our last night in the hotel.
In addition to calling approximately 10 times in the past month, we have sent an e-mail to the GM, as well as corporate and the only response we have gotten was an e-mail saying we would be given 10,000 starwood points. None of the travelers in our party are even starwood preferred members? And... as a result of how this situation was handled, none of us will be staying at a Starwood hotel in the future. Unfortunately, we cannot even get a chance to speak with anyone about this situation, despite ongoing tries, as well as calling corporsate offices.

sbtinme

First off, welcome to Flyertalk. Secondly, sorry to hear of your experience at the MIA 4 Pts. That does sound scary and I'm sure if any of us had been in your shoes, we, too, would've been shaken by it.

You should know that this hotel does not get high marks for proactive management and is often the recipient of marginal reviews and miscellaneous comments. That is no excuse, however, for non-communication, which is what you are reporting.

You should know that most of us here on FT are loyal to Starwood and the SPG program for several reasons, not the least of which is their generally exceptional attention to customer relations and problem resolutions. I would stop sending e-mails and instead be in direct contact with a human being at the SPG Corporate Customer Service (CCS) toll-free at 1-800-328-6242. The fine folks there will listen carefully to your story. They'll also follow up and put real pressure on the property management to address your issue within a short timeframe. If they have already made an offer of 10K in points to you, you'll need to explain why that offer isn't good for you and be prepared to make a request for what you consider reasonable compensation. Be fair and reasonable about it.

My strong sense is that you're situation will be quickly resolved and you'll be far happier in a matter of days.

Lastly, you really shouldn't allow one experience at this so-so hotel cloud your view of the total Starwood network of hotels. The SPG program is quite strong and the vast majority of their properties are well run.

Best of luck.

craz

Welcome to FT,

sorry but I fail to understand why the Hotel shouldnt be charging for your last night. Cause let say it was a bullet, hit your window. If it was done by a hotel employee at teh bequest of the Hotel, I would agree with you. But cause someone shots a gun at your window the Hotel should forgo charging You. I think not.

Id say the workers could have said what they did alittle more diplomatically, but if it was abird as the Police decided it was and not a gunshot and as far as you knew no one was after you and no one from the Hotel did it even by accident, I see no reason that The Hotel owes You anything.

If the Hotel called and said we are sorry that some bird took a wrong turn or got distracted for whatever reason, would that really made you feel OK?

About the only thing that would set me off would be if I thought it was done on purpose either by the Hotel or that someone was after me. Other then that, I would have turned over and gone back to slept.

sbtinme

Craz --

I think some of the issues were:

- they paid for a junior suite and were switched to a standard room and still charged for the former

- ridiculous communications from staff ("sleep on the floor tonight", etc)

- failure of the hotel to communicate back


Were I on vacation and my hotel window shattered from what may have been a bullet -- and then the police were called in to make out a report and all of this happened well after midnight and I didn't get into my new room until after 2am and were still charged for a junior suite even though I was not in one, I see some real justification for some answers from the hotel.

I will agree that no hotel should be held responsible for any and all natural incidents that may occur over the course of any given day. Perhaps it was a bird on steroids that night that smashed their plate glass, we'll never know. But the hotel management should have some empathy for a guest who had some reason to believe it may have been a gunshot. Moreover, as a hotel manager, anytime I had police officers in any of my rooms talking with guests about an incident, I think I'd make an effort to be proactively communicating with those guests first thing the next day. That apparently did not and has not happened.

It's true, we have only one side of the story here and, no offense, tarau, but there always seems to be about 7 sides to every story. Regardless, if the OP can show Starwood that her reasonable requests for communication from the hotel management have been ignored -- particularly if the room charge for the last night still billed out as a junior suite, then some sort of compensation is surely due.

craz

I was a bit harsh since the OP said they asked to be put into a new room, aslo the OP said they were going to sleep & it was after mid-night. Therefore even if there was a downgrade it was a voluntary one. So thats why I felt that the night shouldnt be comped as the OP thought it should be. I guess I see as Im in Biz and dont like the person next to me or behind me so I ask to switch seats and they give me a seat in coach as thats whats available, should that Carrier now refund me the difference in price since afterall mid-flight I switched to Coach?

The window shattered, it broke into a zillion pieces? or was there a bebe shot hole in it? from the OPs own words it seems there was a small hole in the pane and the rest of the window still remained intacted but was all spider webbed out. So it wasnt like there were a zillion pieces of glass on the floor or that the window was blown out and either hot or cold air was coming making the room unusable. what floor were they on if not on street level highly doubtful anyone would be able to gain access thru the window.

I understand that it was nerve racking for them, but a comp IMO is NOT in order, nor really a reduction in rate to the type of room they ended sleeping in for the next few hrs.

Now if The hotel was at fault then the room+ should be comped, but the employees probably correctly saw and thought that the OP was over reacting, which I believe is the case as well.

also it seems the Police were called at the constant insistance of the OP, well Im sure even they listed it as a non-serious incident and thusly thats why it took over 2 hrs till the OP was able to go to sleep. I would have simply rolled over gone back to sleep and let the Hotel deal with it as they wished the next day. So the OP was a partial cause to the reason for not getting to sleep ASAP.

Had the Hotel been called and told tonight if you dont give us $10,000 we are going to shot out the windows of the rooms facing XXXX St, and the Hotel still put people into those rooms, then Id agree with You. But as it is, I dont see what the Hotel did wrong except not be 100% PC in the words they used.

it reminds of the posts all the time where theres a story of how someone was on a plane that had to make an emergency landing and the person was scared they were going to die, and asks what compensation does the Carrier OWE them. Instead of being thankful they survived they want to know what the Carrier OWES them

tarau

As far as we knew at the time, the hole could have been from a bullet. We really did not know. Did we think our life was in danger? No. Were we a quite concerned about why (if only a bb gun or rock - although very doubtful, since we were on the 8th floor), someone would be shooting at us? Yes.... even if it was just a joke or stray. Until we spoke with the police officer, it did not even cross our mind that a bird could have made such a loud noise and create a hole and shatter the glass, so as that glass was on the floor in our room.
I find it questionable that, given those circumstances, we would be expected to just roll over and go to sleep. (even as you commented, it would be nerve wracking)
We do not think that the hotel is responsible for the actual broken window, but since we were on their property at the time of the incident, we feel that they are responsible for our safety and would make all attempts to have their guests feel safe and secure at their hotel - and this is where they failed by all measures.
We asked for a new room because, yes, we were scared. When a hotel employee tells you it could have been a stray bullet from the street and that if he was us, he would sleep on the floor, it did nothing to calm our already nervousness about the situation. Since they did not have a junior suite available, they moved us to a smaller room and advised they could bring in a roll in bed... although that did not fit. After 2 hours of waiting, speaking with the police, packing up all our stuff and moving, we did not get much sleep. At the very minimum, I would expect not be charged for our larger room and quite frankly, after the lack of care or response by the hotel at this point and now spending numerous hours trying to at least get some sort of response from the general manager, I think that we should not be responsible for the last night's stay... since one of us did not have a bed and it was almost 3am by the time we were "settled" into our new room.
Also, to clarify - the night auditor (who was the only one working at the front desk that night) asked us we we thought she should call the police, to which we replied that we thought that would be a good idea... given that at that point (and still to this day), we were uncertain what caused the window to break.
In addition, we were told by the staff that they just wanted to reassure us that we would not be charged for the window! It was one ridiculous comment after another that added to our frustration and uneasiness with the situation.
... all is very disappointing.

Starwood Lurker

Sorry for the experience you had at the Four Points by Sheraton Miami Beach. Most hotel-related complaints are handled by Corporate Customer Service. You can reach them at 800-328-6242.

Good luck.

Sincerely,


William R. Sanders
Customer Service Coordinator
Starwood Preferred Services

[email protected]