Radisson Blu Plaza Bangkok = Quiet Hotel After Covid Reopening

I am not sure if there is a unique and clear-cut definition of full-service hotel, but by some account if I am not mistaken Radisson Blu Plaza was the very last one I had not tried in Bangkok before, among international and global hotel chains (not regional): Marriott Hilton Hyatt IHG Accor GHA SLH LHW Shangri-La Mandarin Oriental Peninsula Rosewood Four Seasons, and Radisson.  

Radisson has a poor loyalty program but at least they offer status match to mid tier (Gold) and I threw the kitchen sink at them by proving status with multiple hotel chains in the hope of getting top tier instead.  No success: they gave me Gold just like anyone else without responding to the fact that I had many chains, not only one.  Oh well.  

Consequently I thought Radisson BLU would a serious contender for being the worse value for the money in Bangkok but based on my stay it has thankfully avoided that fate.  Upon arrival I received no upgrade at all (?!) and I asked what about upgrade for Golds.  They then changed my room to a business room which looked the same as the normal rooms but on one of the high floors marked business.  The bathroom amenities gave a distinct feeling of cheapness by being unbranded and unmarked, they smelled a bit like candy.  Overall the room looked fairly normal, not wow but not bad nor aging - decent.

After I saw the room, I went back to the front desk to ask if by virtue of having a business class room, would I end up having lounge access?  They said the lounge was actually closed but that I was welcome to have happy hour at the lobby bar.  

At the moment happy hour at many Marriott chain hotels is awful because they have made it too easy to reach Platinum status last year during covid promotions.  The benefit of Radisson being a stingy hotel chain is that happy hour looked like 2020 not 2022: there was not a single guest in there for the full two hours so it was very quiet and relaxing.  Instead of a poor buffet, there was a short menu prepared from the kitchen and some limited choice of drinks including cocktails.  With the fully private happy hour and the nice waitress entertaining our 1-year old daughter who was tired and complaining a bit, for that reason alone Radisson Blu exceeded my low expectations.  

Wifi worked well with speed of 13 Mbps.

All in all I did not think this was a bad hotel and the elite benefits were not as weak as I expected due to having lounge access.  Many other hotel chains give free breakfast in Bangkok but in fairness I would as well if I had Radisson Platinum status, and it’s unclear if they would be willing to give suite upgrades to Platinums which I get regularly at other hotel chains; perhaps Radisson would give suites as well.  So in the end Radisson might be able to compete fairly well for top tier elites compared to hotels in a similar price range in Bangkok.  The main problem is not the hotel itself but mostly the loyalty program which was cut in two (Americas and Rest of World) which means for someone travelling everywhere, technically we could stay 118 nights in Radissons (59 nights in Americas and 59 nights in Rest of World) and still not reach top tier which makes no sense.  For that reason alone I rank this loyalty program at the bottom of the pecking order especially with IHG having upped its game recently.