Dear all,

Wanted to share my experience last month at Plaza Athenee, Bangkok.
My wife and me actually love the hotel and have stayed there 4 times during the past year, unfortunately this time was rather disappointing for various reasons.

Arrival / Check-In:
After two nights at Le Meridien, we moved over for another two nights at PA and as my wife - of course - preferred to go shopping, I went there alone on early afternoon and wanted to check-in for us.
This time we had booked the Club Room right away (previous stays we upgraded upon check-in) and the reservation was under my wife`s name due to her gold status with SPG.
Arrived with the taxi, the staff took the luggage and I entered the lobby and wanted to move on to the elevators for check-in in the lounge. One lady came and I explained her about our reservation and that I intended to go to the lounge for check-in. She literally didn`t let me proceed but insisted I need to verify first with the ground floor check-in desk.
Surprised about this procedure I went there and thought that if I show a print-out of our reservation (done via their homepage) everything should be fine and I could proceed upstairs, but it turned out to become a big hassle: they wanted to see all docs, passports, SPG membercards, etc. Overall they were pretty arrogant and gave me the feeling I tried to “cheat” myself into the hotel…
Finally, they confirmed all was in order and one lady accompanied me to the lounge apologizing for the inconvenience.
In the lounge I had to do the whole process again and needed to present all docs, passports, etc. again, so it took ages until I finally was “allowed” in our room.

Although I don`t know if it is the normal procedure to identify oneself first on the ground floor (anyone can confirm this ?), this was handled in a really unfriendly and not welcoming way – besides I wonder what the “benefit” of lounge check-in is then?

Later that day, we went to the lounge for the evening cocktails and there one of the same ladies asked my wife for her passport again… Annoying.

Lounge:
Still very nice atmosphere in a great location. During evening cocktails / snacks, drinks are now served by the staff, no more self-service at the counter. Basically a nice move, if the service was just more attentive.
Two of the long-time ladies working there seem to have left, they were in fact brilliant.

Breakfast:
Still fantastic, unfortunately service was not.
The evening before, we have asked in the lounge if they could reserve a table for us at breakfast in Rain Tree Café for the next morning, which they declined “as reservations aren`t possible for breakfast”.
When we went to Rain Tree Café the next morning, we had to wait nearly 5 minutes for a waiter to show up and allocate us a table. Just after we took our seat and wanted to order, another waiter came to our table and said we couldn`t sit there as this table had been reserved for someone else - what an irony. Didn`t want to start discussion on early holiday morning, so finally had to move to another table.

Customer Feedback:
As usual, I took the time and filled out the customer feedback form provided in the room, mentioning above experiences and handed it over upon check-out. Also wanted to know more on the correct procedure at check-in for next visit.
A month has passed now and didn`t hear anything back, very disappointing in fact.
One of the past stays, we received a letter signed from the GM thanking us for our input and mentioning some of our observations.


Anyhow, with the experience of this stay (especially the unfriendly treatment at some parts), I will seriously reconsider the hotel for our next stay over X-Mas, there are more than enough alternatives around in BKK.

Thanks for reading and please feel free to comment.