Holiday Inn Skopje

What is your Priority Club status?
Diamond

Were you (or for multi-stayers are you generally) happy with the hotel/stay?
Yes

Which room did you book and which upgrade did you receive?
Lowest, received King Suite With Balcony

How are the rooms?
Large spacious suite with two areas
Good wifi
Nespresso
Plate of sweet cakes as welcome gift
Manual minibar with a paper bill to fill out
Bidet
Weird taps on shower, took a long time to work out how to turn it on.
Very high water pressure from sink but relatively low from shower (still acceptable).

Separately controlled air con for each side. The living area got cold quickly but the sleeping area never got cold despite setting both to full blast and 18°C - I only wanted to cool it down because it was a very hot day, but it didn't really bother me. However some people might have wanted to change room when faced with this problem.

How is the exec. lounge?
none

What was good and what was bad?
Good
- location is the final/first stop of the airport bus, which costs 199 denars (effectively 200 as the driver doesn't have change, also accepts 4 euros in coins (or 5 euro note), card apparently accepted during opening times of the office at the airport). Takes about 30 minutes, timetable different every day and quite sparse)
- 2 mins walk from shopping centre / supermarket.
- 5 mins walk to the main square, from where you cross the river to the old town
- 10 mins walk to the bus station for intercity and international buses.
- lots of bureaux de change everywhere which do a reasonable rate (1% spread) for euros, USD and sometimes GBP, CHF, AUD, CAD too. If planning to use ATM check which ones have no charges.
- several local buses pass nearby but I didn't manage to figure out how to use them. You need a smart card or apparently day passes cost 120 denars, was told that drivers sell them but other sources said no.
- breakfast was more interesting than regular stuff you get in western Europe, some cheese and vegetable dishes, also omelettes at the buffet. Long hours of 0600-1000
- staff were very helpful with an administrative errand.

Bad
- not much to say, well the building is not super modern, and maybe was a bit overbearing on being thanked for being Diamond by everyone. I was the only diamond and maybe they don't get high status guests that often.

Value for $ or Priority Club Points? Would you return?
Paid MKD 4295 (quoted 70 euros so no scam on exchange rate), which is cheap by international standards, but I could have paid 40-50 euros for other hotels and got no status benefits.
I'm unlikely to go to Skopje again for many years, however the point of having status is to be recognised when visiting a new city / new hotel for the first and maybe only time. This hotel excelled at that.