I stayed at this hotel last week. I reserved a standard King (or Classic King whatever they term it) and as IHG Platinum I was upgraded to a Premium Runway View King which would have been nice if there during daylight. The only way I knew I received an upgrade was seeing the room type change in the app. Room was nice, clean, seemed newer than it is. Good soundproofing. I was on the 9th floor facing toward the end of G concourse.

TSA still closed but the skywalk to get from C25 to the hotel is open one way. It was nice to walk from my inbound flight from Bemidji at A2, and literally see the hotel as I exited the jetway, and be standing at the check-in desk 5 minutes later.

Check-in was very abrupt. "ID and credit card" was my response to Good Evening, I'm checking in. I was thanked for being a Platinum and asked if I wanted points or a drink voucher for the bar. I said I don't drink alcohol, but I would take a bottle of water or two (she had a case of water on the counter next to her). She said sorry, but she will have to give me points. She was happy to charge me for two bottles of water from the closed coffee stand across. No asking if I had stayed before, no introduction to any amenities of the hotel, just pointed toward the elevators. I did stop and step back and ask about airport shuttle in the morning and got a "What time?" I knew from reading online it ran on the 20's and requested a 0620 shuttle. Overall disappointing.

Ate at the lobby restaurant (the steakhouse/sports bar one) sitting at the bar. Pretty good burger. Bartender/server named Bob was great, very friendly and the right amount of talkative, addressing everybody by name. Seemed he had some regular guests who ate there every night of the stay.

Shuttle in the morning was a great experience. I exited the elevator into the lobby and the driver was standing there and addressed me by name, said I was the only one with a reservation but we needed to wait a couple of minutes until the scheduled time. Asked which terminal/airline. I said that Delta was close enough to where I was going. He asked specifically where and I said I was taking ground transport on Groome over to Eau Claire. He said he would do one better than Delta and drove me directly to the Groome pick-up area and let me off about 20 feet from their desk and told me their check-in procedures. I wrote in a nice note about him. He even offered to get out and show me where to go but I could see it through the window.

I'll probably stay again depending on price. Corporate discount got me about $200/night after tax. I'd put the convenience value as $20-30 for a one-night stay, which won out over the Crowne Plaza which was my alternative.

My hotel the next night was actually my best hotel stay in awhile.... at the C'Mon Inn in Thief River Falls. (Yes, I had a whole Minnesota/Wisconsin week and I'm trying to shake the accent. I grew up in Omaha with a little bit of it... I speak enough Minnesotan to know that Not too bad is about as good as you'll get and Not too good is really bad.)