akatuva

Recently completed a stay here in mid-July and would have to say it was a pretty significant disappointment. I had booked the room here in back in February for as part of a very special trip / birthday celebration for my SO.

On check-in, I received no recognition or explanation of Platinum / VIP level benefits and got a regular SPG key pack and had to ask about Plat welcome amenity. Was placed in a room which was supposed to be an "upgrade" but was slightly larger than the standard Art Deco room and was literally submerged halfway underground. We affectionately referred to it as the "bomb shelter". When you looked up out of the window, the view was of the hotel's mechanical equipment. This was despite the fact that the hotel had several higher end suites available and I had reached out to the hotel to coordinate upgrades for this special occasion.

Managed to get moved to a better room after the first 3 nights of the stay, and was moved to a Mosaic Suite (typically given for Gold upgrades) despite the fact that again, there were Macassar and other higher level suites available. At least the new room had some sunlight. Also, got upgraded to an SPG Gold key pack - so at least there was some progress there. Unfortunately, the new room had really poor air conditioning, but we were out of the room most of the day for sightseeing, so we just lived with it.

Overall, service was ok, though sometimes slow. The staff was very polite and gave good effort. There were still several missteps though. Requested an iron that was delivered filthy and covered with brown stains on the plate (turned out it was filled with dirty water inside). Requested WSJ as the newspaper for morning delivery and didn't receive it any day of the stay. Room service orders were incorrect or overcharged a few times. Again, not a big deal, but for a hotel that is a Cat 7 Starwood property, my expectations were just higher than that.

Bottom line to me is that when paying for a Starwood Cat 7 property, the SPG program is what makes the difference versus going Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, Shangri-La, etc. Here, there was no recognition or extra effort and so we ended up cancelling the last few nights of our stay. Later in the week, we booked Le Bristol through the Amex Platinum Fine Hotels & Resorts program and received much better treatment / upgrades than at the Prince de Galles.

Earning Starpoints here isn't worth it, especially if it's a special occasion trip versus a business trip. Use Virtuoso or FHR to enjoy one of Paris' other hotels and you still get the breakfast amenity, late checkout and room upgrade.