Le Club Accorhotels is ostensibly a brand loyalty program, but after my most recent experience I cannot fathom how they can call themselves such. On a recent trip to Europe, we tried to use some well-earned Le Club awards points to accommodate our stay. We had more than 70K points racked up this year alone from various business trips - almost 80 nights at 300-400 euro/night Sofitels and Novotels. 3x the Platinum Member threshold. You would think that kind of loyalty would engender some halfway decent, if not appreciative, treatment from Accor. It did not.

The trouble began day 1 in Barcelona. We booked our Le Club Rewards stay at the Ibis Barcelona Pza Glories 22 because we wanted to be as close as possible to the City Centre and the Novotel Barcelona City was completely booked. Upon arrival, the concierge (Remi) was terrible. First, he lied. After our initial booking, Accor circulated an internet promotion for 40% off all stays booked through the end of August. Remi informed us that it would not be possible to apply the 40% discount to our stay without cancelling our current reservation and making a new one – a simple work around which would not be possible because the hotel was “completely booked.” Two minutes later, a couple walked in off the street with no reservation and was given an available room.

When we got to our room, the place was dank, musty and had a bad odor. There were also several long, black human hairs inside our supposedly clean, white linens. We called to see if Novotel City had any last minute cancellation and luckily they had, so we went downstairs to switch our stay to another hotel in the Accor network. This should be a very simple task. But it was not.

We were informed that the points had already been deducted and could not be refunded or transferred to another Accor hotel. That is right, if you use reward points, you lose them the moment you check-in. Even if the service is terrible and dishonest. Even if you had no way of knowing the room would be disgusting. Even if a regular customer could easily check out with no hassle. For your loyalty, you are rewarded with a headache.

At no point during our booking (we reserved with the booking call center) were we informed that we would be pre-paying for the stay. We gave a credit card to hold the reservation and were told we could settle up at the end of the stay using points, just as this very forum says:

“You can spend your points at any participating hotel. To do so you have to order an electronic voucher to redeem at check-out…Think of them as cash when settling the bill.”

We tried to sort the issue out with Accor representatives; however, nobody we spoke to knew anything. The Hotel staff told us to call the number we placed our reservation with. The Call Center told us to call Customer Care. Customer Care told us their work day was ending shortly and to sort it out with the Hotel. Nobody had answers and nobody was helpful. We were given an email address to contact for further assistance – that email was not responded to for the entirety of our trip (and still has not been). I am not sure who even to contact to lodge a complaint, as nobody in the outsourced Customer Service Centers seem to care.

We raised the issue of the poor, inefficient service to loyal customers, and staff’s response was “This is Ibis, not Novotel.” So there you have it. After spending half a day ping-ponging between unhelpful representatives, we gave up and tried to minimize the damage the fiasco brought upon our stay in Barcelona. Hopefully others can learn from this experience.