I agree with you; I do think that they interpreted lack of demand to mean lack of paying customers instead of lack of diamond members. It's pretty stingy, we thought. The hotel was apparently pretty full, even though the rates were high because of summer. There was no RC concierge, and the regular concierge I spoke with sounded somewhat surprised at my complaint. As she puts it, I was only comped to a RC room because I was a diamond member; implying that I had no reason to complain.

But my understanding of the membership rules was that access to a RC lounge was a unqualified benefit for being a diamond/platinum member; it seems like bad faith to take that benefit away just because a particular hotel unilaterally decided that there was not enough paying guests.

In any event, I didn't care to beg for a comped breakfast. No substitute amenity was offered; I didn't even bother to ask (because I was on hold with the regular concierge for about 10 minutes). Took a look at sad state of the room, saw the dark RC lounge; and called the front desk to check out. The one redeeming thing was that they did not hassle me as to why I was checking out after staying only 20 minutes at the hotel.

[This message has been edited by kishna (edited 07-09-2001).]