Originally Posted by
escape4
Concerns about lounge experience do not seem warranted at Fairmont hotels at least not relative to other hotel chains, either before or after the Diamond access change. For anybody concerned, then where else would you stay instead? Besides Ritz Carlton I believe Fairmont has the second best lounges of any hotel brand on average. I am not counting hotel brands which only have a handful of lounges on an exception basis such as St.Regis, Park Hyatt, W, etc. What I mean is for hotel brands which commonly have lounges.
While I agree that allowing Diamond won't affect lounge experience much, if at all, as I stated above, I disagree that there aren't options. If I don't feel the lounge experience justifies the premium, I don't book Fairmont Gold, and the regular Fairmont rooms are not that different from the premium Marriott and Hilton brands. Four Seasons and Shangri-La also have top notch clubs.