I had the unfortunate experience last week of staying at a Westin with a few other occupants - bedbugs. Having been at an outdoor barbecue the previous weekend, I first assumed the bites were just latent mosquito bites, but as more and more bites were popping up (and in strange places where I would not have gotten them at a barbecue), I was concerned. In the middle of the night while itching, I suddenly realized what they might be. I got up and checked under the sheets and mattress (as best as I could, being a pretty tiny woman) and didn't see anything - but I hadn't checked too thoroughly. There WERE a few blood streaks, but I chalked those up to me scratching the bites too much. However, after getting home, the new bites have stopped appearing, while the old ones were still itching (and none of them showed signs of me having broken the skin by scratching). Thanks to the bedbug epidemic ravaging NYC right now, my doctor has seen a lot of bedbug bites and says that's what mine seem to be. Fortunately, my suitcase seems to be clean, and I've already sent all the clothes that were in it to be washed, so when the bites clear up, hopefully I'm in the clear.

I was still pretty upset to get bedbugs at a Westin, but decided to call the hotel (purposely not giving the name of which one it was here) before flaming them all over the place, and I am SO glad I did! Management has been absolutely wonderful about the whole thing, apologizing profusely and offering to take care of any and all doctor's and cleaning bills. They also put me on hold to issue the command to seal off the room until it can be thoroughly inspected/decontaminated - I was pretty impressed that they took such quick action.

Anyway, all this is to say that far from making me give up on Starwood, I'm EXTREMELY impressed with how an unfortunate situation was handled. The director of security made it very clear how seriously he takes this issue, and I'm confident that they'll follow through on cleaning everything out and making sure this doesn't inconvenience any other guests.

Kudos, Starwood! And I didn't even have to play the status card to get the royal treatment