Vuittons: It sounded like he simply had the day off. But perhaps it was in Europe as you suggest.

Raffles: I hear your point, but I generally find that hotels treat meal credits different from cash credits. Even if its a cash figure for the meal it will typically say that your package includes "one free lunch up to $100". That said, if they had meant it not to be cumulative I think they should have said it. They did say for example that the credit does not apply to the free day, and that a service charge is charged on the free day. They easily could have added this detail to the letter.

The woman who escorted us to the front desk made a point of telling us straight away that the credit was not cumulative. It was one of the first things out of her mouth. It's as though she knew that people would be confused. Perhaps it was a recent policy change. Our suite (the upgraded room which has a rack rate of around $1250) had an effective cost about $550 and this includes breakfast valued at $70 ($925 X 3 nights less $750 in credits plus $150 service charge on free day all divided by 4 nights). I can imagine that Mr. Schultze decided that this was all to generous and suddenly made the credit non-cumulative for existing bookings. In fact I noticed that sometime after I made my reservation that they eliminated the cash credit from the Escape package (I am glad I escaped Capella!), although it is still offered through Virtuoso. So perhaps I am one of the first guests to experience a policy change and perhaps that explains why it is not in the letter. However, based on the employees that I met, I think that explanation is too generous. I just think they are stupid.

Over the course of the four days we would easily have used up the credit and (much) more. As you said we could re-schedule but who wants to spend their time on vacation counting their money? It's a shame to ask your guests who are supposed to be on a care free vacation to have to set up an excell spreadsheet to keep track of their spending.