Originally Posted by
darthbimmer
The brand caters to people who enjoy the extra space, the free breakfast, and the evening drinks. That's the value proposition ES offers. The fact they offer these extras at a price that's (sometimes) only slightly higher than traditional nearby hotels should make you wonder-- but it should make you wonder why those nearby hotels aren't cheaper when they offer so much less.
I'm in an Embassy Suites right now doing a year-end mattress run. It's half a mile from a Hampton Inn that offers no free happy hour and a nasty prefab little breakfast. Oddly both properties are priced identically @ $129, so went for the ES although I generally don't like them... I find them dated, stinking of chlorine (owing to attached pool or lobby water features) and overrun with small children (as this one is now... big year-end youth hockey tournament nearby).
With dozens of children attacking the PM snacks and AM breakfast buffet like locusts, it must be a margin-shrinker indeed for the hotel's accountants.
At this ES you have to show your voucher and state your name to gain access to either freebie. Not always the case. I drank for free at the ES-SFO Airport this summer at the manager's reception, having wandered across the street from the dowdy and sad little Doubletree SFO.