Warning, this is a long one...

As a proponent of the "new and improved" Sheraton New York and Towers, it's somewhat painful to write this one, but with the good must come the bad.

Checked in at the Sheraton NY and Towers this past Monday night around 11 pm. With all the construction, the lobby was somewhat difficult to navigate, but I managed to find the front desk. The line was long, but there were plenty of employees and moved quickly. The clerk was friendly, remembered to offer me the platinum amenity and told me that I had been put in a suite.

The suite, on the 40-somethingth floor, was beautiful. Clearly, some money had been put into this room. The furniture was new, the carpet was clean and there was tons of room. And here's where the fun started.

As I looked around the room, I noticed one slight problem that would impact my sleep: there was no bed. The front desk clerk had given me the key to the parlor, but not the adjoining room, which was locked from the inside. I called downstairs, was put on hold for a few minutes and then spoke with someone who offered to send the security guard up to open my room.

When he opened my room, I walked in to be hit with the overwhelming smell of vomit. He had turned to leave after opening the door, but I called him back and he stepped in to examine the room. I asked him if he could smell the vomit, and he remarked casually, "Actually, that smells like raw sewage," and then proceeded to explain all of the factors that could make the room smell that way. He was clearly educated on the matter, as his explanation went on for quite a while, but I figured that there was probably a better time for this. I asked what the hotel was going to do about this, and he remarked "You have to call the front desk. I only open doors." Then he walked out, and I began preparing the Flyertalk trip report.

I called downstairs, and someone picked up the phone and hung it up without saying anything. I called again, and listened to the "All operators are busy..." message for about ten minutes, interwoven with a long discussion of the Sheraton Promise, and how if I was not happy, the hotel would make it up to me.

After ten minutes or so, someone finally picked up the phone. I explained the entire situation, and she offered to move me, mentioning that the only room left was in the unrenovated section of the hotel and was not a suite. Fine, nothing I can do about this one. She was about to hang up when I mentioned the Sheraton Promise to her--she said that the hotel was fulfilling the Promise by moving me to another (inferior) room. After I told her that I did not think this was the intent of the promise, she told me that she would call me once I got to my new room.

About 10-15 minutes later, someone showed up to let me into the new room which, to be fair, was perfectly adequate. After an hour, the person who promised to call still had not done so. I called downstairs, was on hold for 10 minutes before someone picked up the phone, and asked for a manager. I explained the entire story to the manager (who told me that the person that I talked to had gone home for the night) and she seemed truly apologetic, offering to comp me room service and arrange for an upgrade for the next night. By this time, it was 1 am and I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep, so she offered me 2,500 SPG points and a fruit basket for the next afternoon.

By the next afternoon, I had reconciled myself to accepting the points and moving on with life, particularly after a pleasant experience in the club lounge (easily the highlight of the stay--more on that later). Until I checked out, that is.

On the morning I checked out, I needed the hotel to hold some bags since I would be in meetings all day. I approached the bell desk, who refused to take my bag and directed me downstairs. There was a separate desk there, where a sign informed me that I would be charged $3 per bag. I returned that afternoon, paid my $3 and headed back to the front desk, where the clerk told me that they had always charged for baggage storage (which does not sound right to me, but since I cannot remember for sure, the hotel gets the benefit of the doubt). When I asked why the hotel would no longer take baggage, I was told that they could not be responsible if anything turned up missing and that the baggage storage area was run by a separate company (who, presumably, would also deny responsibility if anything was missing).

Thus, we have a dilemma. Either A) The hotel does not trust its employees enough to let the stick my bag in a closet, which makes me wonder about whether I should allow housekeeping into my room, or B) The hotel saw an opportunity to save/make some cash by first firing bell desk workers and then hiring an outside company to store bags and taking a cut. I'm going with option B, but either way, I'm tired of getting nickled and dimed.

Thus, the saga ends, but I am left with a thought about the Sheraton Promise. I have stayed in several Sheratons over the past year, and have had "discussions" with either the hotel or corporate about three of them--this one, and two in Orlando (one due to rude service and a hotel-wide loss of electricity that forced me to switch hotels, and a second that failed to honor Platinum status). The common thread in all of these, though (other than a general distaste for them among Flyertalkers) is the fact that I had to bring up the Promise, not the hotel. In a separate thread, William mentioned that the Promise is not something that a customer invokes--it is something that the hotel should offer. He is absolutely correct in this matter. But when a customer has to demand that the hotel honors its stated policy, it leaves a bad taste, regardless of the outcome. By my fourth phone call, the hotel manager could have offered me 100,000 SPG points, and I would not have stayed here again.

There are some absolutely fantastic Sheratons out there (Calgary, Omaha, Niagra Falls are a few that stand out, but there are plenty more), but clearly there are several that have not gotten the message, and they bring down the whole chain. 99% of Starwood customers do not solicit Flyertalk, and do not have the advantage of knowing ahead of time what they are getting into (good or bad). The Promise was intended to help account for problems at the poor hotels, but sometimes I feel that all it has done is create one more rule for the great hotels to follow and the lousy ones to ignore.

I could send this message to Customer Service, who I know would send a genuine apology and probably a few points, but I just don't want that anymore. Rather, I would simply like to know that the hotel I am going to cares about its customers and is proud to operate under the Starwood flag.

Mike



[This message has been edited by mikeef (edited 08-10-2003).]