I just came back from 14 nights in Italy. Most of it using points for free rooms, except for 1 room in Florence. I received excellent treatment as a platinum even with the free stays.

William if you read this can it be passed on to Starwood in Italy for great customer service.

Westin Palace - Milan 2 nights 1 room (points)

Arrived at 9am, hotel was fairly full. Front Desk said they would try and get me a room as quickly as possibly. We recived our room fairly large in the new wing within an hour. We were escorted to our room by the Front Desk Manager. Later that day got a nice selection of fruit for our amenity.

Hotel Danielli (2 rooms both on points)

On arrival we were escorted to two very large connecting rooms (probably more of a junior suite) overlooking the Grand Canal.

Fresh Fruit and Chocalate was provided in both the rooms. Contrary to a lot of reports, I didn't find them at all noisy and with the blinds, slept late every day.

Hotel Grand Florence - ( 1 room points, 1 room Free)

On arrival given a partial hotel tour and escorted to our rooms. Our room (paid) wa upgraded to a 2 room suite with 2 bathrooms overlooking the river. A bottle of red wine arrived shortly after we did. My kids were given a large room overlooking the river two doors down, though did not get an amenity.

Westin Excelsior - Rome ( 2 rooms free on points

4 days prior to my arrival I got an email from them asking for my arrival time so they could have rooms ready (lucklly I was checking email)

On arrival, we were shown to two very large rooms with very large bathrooms with seperate tub and shower they also had balconies overlooking the american embassy. I had wanted one room with a king bed, but the manager explained that they wer full and they could accomdate me, but on a different floor from my kids room, so we stayed in the original room.

In each room was a nice fruit selection along with Godiva chocalates and also in our room a complimentary book with photagraphs of Rome, which is now sitting on my coffee table. The fruit was refilled on the 3rd day of our 5 night stay.

In addition to this, the starwood cocierge had each hotel book my train tickets to the next location, which were waiting for me on arrival at each hotel.

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CO Plat, AA PLat
Starwood Plat