jpdx

I wish this were true. I spent a night in a room with terrible musty smell. It was a late arrival, so stupidly, I didn’t go back to ask for a different room right away (I did the next morning). So these stinkers are definitely still out there, and if anyone ends up in them, do not think it’ll be ok, but rather ask for a new one right away.

I happened to be at the aloft on the weekend CJKatl picked for their price comparison above. My confirmed BRG rate was THB1630++. All other hotels were more than twice as much. I don’t want to flame the fires of the OT “which hotel to choose” discussion, but I’d say that in my (considerable) BRG experience, the BKK market has changed in that a few years ago, all Starwood hotels used to be easy to claim, so it was just a matter of picking which you liked best, and then claiming it at slightly-above-20% to 50+% off SPG rates. These days, many of the hotels are tougher to claim (or not at rates I’m willing to pay, like SGS and SR). Rates vary like crazy, and the trick is to, when something good pops up on an OTA, file claims for all potential travel dates you can foresee. FWIW, I had four two-night stays in BKK this year – three at ROS @1850++ pn and this one at the aloft.

Back to the aloft. Obviously, it doesn’t have a lounge, and you won’t get a suite. Location is of course always highly subjective, but IMO the aloft is worse than some of the hotels that have direct access to trains/covered walkways. I would say if you can get it under/around 2K baht, and other places are 50% more expensive, it’s a solid buy. The breakfast is quite good – egg station, lots of hot and cold options – dare I say, this place would be in the top 10% of breakfasts in the US – for ALL brands. The rooms, if you avoid the smelly ones, are fine. And you’ll have a few thousand baht in your pocket to spend on other things. What I don’t get is how BKK hotels are now categorized for points redemptions. Surely, nobody in their right mind would book the aloft as a Cat 3, when ROS, CY, and 4P are Cat 2.

One last thing I want to mention that I haven’t seen in this thread. Your24. When flying to BKK, I often have arrivals/departures at odd times, so the Plat++ benefit of requesting arrival/departure time is important to me. IME, this hotel is the worst, in that they ALWAYS deny requests. I’ve tried probably two dozen times, and then after they reject the request, cancel and stay somewhere else. This time, there were no viable alternatives, so I asked at check-in. They had the gall to tell me that 4pm checkout is all they can do “without charge,” but that of course I could stay longer if I was willing to pay. Other hotels in BKK are quite willing to accommodate early checkin/late checkout/whatever requests, so if this benefit matters to you, don’t pick the aloft.