Was it something you said?

While agreeing with the main gist of this thread, I'm reminded of my introduction to Finland many years ago. I stayed at the former IC in Manneheimintie (later Continental) and regularly received space available upgrades - probably helped by usually arriving on Sundays.

On my first stay, there was a strike at the hotel. Management got together and organised a simple soup + fish main course supper, thus avoiding the need for us to get to downtown Helsinki for subsistence.

I even enjoyed the IC Strand later, now a Hilton.

Going OT, IHG in Switzerland is hopeless for me - just one usable IC in Geneva, a next to hopeless onetime IC in Zurich, and little in the way of HI/HIX in cities.