I routinely ask luxury hotels to confirm in advance that they can cool to 68 F/20 C. In really hot places, I often ask for 65 F/19 C, since I don't trust most hotel air con systems. If they confirm the temperature in writing, I am good to go. If they don't, I usually won't go. So when things go wrong, I am almost always covered.

Most hotels actually deliver under those circumstances...but not all. The air con "going out" failures are rare...but they happen to me here and there, of course. Not only The Upper House, but the Lodhi and Amarvilas had air con failures recently while I was in India. They each refunded us half a night room rate.

I won't go back to the FS Hualalai because of their air con issues, no matter how much I like the hotel. They don't even try to guarantee 68 F/20 C. They ended up refunding 3 of 5 nights...but they handled it less well than others on my list, believe it or not. (For my next visit to the Big Island after that, not a single hotel on the Kona coast would guarantee in writing 68 F air con at night! So we stayed in a cheap suite at the Sheraton. If I'm going to suffer, I'm not going to pay a lot.)