I booked a room at a Sofitel and emailed the hotel that I want an early check in, I got a reply that I have to pay for that because it's not a benefit of my Platinum card. Huhm strange, it says so on the accor site. So on the day I just checked in early, but needed to wait 20 minutes to get the room ready and in the meantime wait in their lounge.
On the day of check in I also requested a late check out, but I had to contact front office on the day of check out for availability. Another strange thing, according to the benefits it says on the day of arrival I should request late check out. Anyway on the day of check out I had to contact fo and they tell me they are running full and could only give me until 1pm in stead of 4pm. What a bs I said, you have a lot of rooms available and that I will come to their office. So I arrived there and granted me the late check out without any discussion. I don't know if in the meantime they checked the many nights I stayed there the past 2 months, but I would definitely not take no for an answer.
This we are running full, or no room available bs is a common thing in the hotelbusiness. But I would not leave it at that. One time I even got my money back for the early check in, after contacting the manager. And guess what, the girl at the frontdesk picked up her own wallet and had to hand me the money back. Maybe that is the way to have them teached how to treat customers, because the manager really got angry at her.