christianj

Sadly this hotel continues to play games with the Platinum upgrades!

For my stay last week I had been upgraded to a Superior Room before the arrival. On my way to the hotel I got on the app and saw that there were standard suites available for purchase. The agent that checked me in made a big deal that "You have been upgraded from your originally booked room to a Superior Room as a Starwood Platinum guest." I said "thanks but are there no suites available?" She managed to tell me that the Superior was an upgrade and that was all they had until I said that this was always the situation at the hotel when I stayed there in the past. I told her that I had NEVER gotten a suite and asked why they didn't honor the program rules if suites were available. I got the standard....the suites that are showing as available online have been allocated to other guests....well that is nice so why are they for sale? Evidently the manager working the check-in desk overheard and she got involved...again some story of if they can sell the suites then they don't give them as upgrades...well that's not what the rules of the program are! Anyway she reluctantly gave me a suite but continued to hold steadfast to the excuse that "they do their very best to upgrade Platinum guests to suites" even though they had just flat out lied to me and made up a story.

Later that evening I got an email from the Assistant General Manager and from the text of the email he was clearly misinformed of what happened. I explained to him exactly what happened in my reply and he then apologized for the situation. In the end I got suite but only after making a big stink which should not have been necessary if they just followed the program rules. Sadly as much as I like the hotel I likely will try the aloft next time I need to be in the city.