Just wanted to give people a heads up about this property (Westin Palace Madrid), as it appears the staff helped themselves to our cash during our stay and I'm pretty sure they had been casing us since check-in.

After a long flight from California, my companion and I arrived in Madrid and went straight to the Westin Palace. We got our room, and immediately showered together. While showering, I heard the door attempting to be opened; but we had deadbolted it so I heard the bang of the deadbolt. There may have been a knock that I couldn't hear over the shower, so I thought nothing of it. 10 minutes later my companion left to go grab some food and run some errands. I took this time to lay down and attempt a nap. Several minutes into my nap I was awoken by a knock at the door. A lady that worked for the hotel was there, and upon answering she said 'Oh nevermind, I'll come back later'. I thought this a bit odd; why come to my door if you didn't really want anything - it was way too early for turn down service... but I didn't harp on it (unfortunately). After being awoken from my nap, I couldn't go back to sleep so I decided to go upstairs to look at the gym facilities. Naively, I left my wallet sitting on the table and only took my key card. I returned no more than 10 minutes later, and sure enough the 100 Euros that had been sticking out of my wallet was missing, along with 150-200 US $'s that were atop of my companions suitcase. Given the short amount of time I was away from the room, and the numerous attempts by the staff to enter the room, I can only conclude that we had been marked as prime targets and monitored accordingly. I suspect the initial entry attempt was to see if we were in the room, and the 2nd attempt happened because my companion was seen leaving the room and they weren't sure if it was empty, then the 3rd attempt once I was seen leaving the room as well....

A call to security proved meaningless; they suggested the money possibly flew out the window; the window that had never been opened and was across the room from both the wallet and the suitcase. But they said they'd check the card keys of their employees with the entry log of the door and get back to me. 2 days later before checking out, I asked the front desk if security was going to get back to me. I was told that they already had. After insisting that they hadn't, I asked for the hotel manager (not because I thought I'd actually ever see the $ again, but more to see if I should make a police report in hopes of preventing this in the future). The hotel manager didn't have any information from security, and instructed that a police report would be useless because his staff has worked at the hotel for years and wouldn't take my money. He suggested my companion may have taken it....

Nice... be careful if you stay here. I was amazed this sort of treatment would occur at a hotel of this caliber, but I suppose you just always have to keep your guard up.

On a positive note, I am glad they had the courtesy to just take the cash and leave the wallet. While my passport and my larger stack of cash were locked in the safe, losing my credit cards wouldn't have been fun, seeing as how this occured within the first 2 hours of a 2 week European vacation.