I'm writing this from St. Regis Shanghai now, where I am for only 1 night. Whenever I have meetings on the Pudong side (yes, it's a sunday, but business is business), I try to stay at either St. Regis or Hyatt. Otherwise, I would be exclusively Westin on the Puxi side, which IMO, is the better of the two hotels. Rate this time at the St. Regis was USD 140/night, whereas at Hyatt, they were quoting USD 250/night.

I always run into problems at the St. Regis (although minor, but still bothersome). Twice in the past, I have had to "fight" for room upgrades although I am SPG Platinum. Today, they upgrade me to an Exec. Suite without my asking. Good for them! A nice improvement. This time, however, problems with dining at the Saints Restaurant, where I was using the Starwood Privilege Card to get 20% off dining. None of the servers knew what this card was, and kept telling me that it was good for discounts off room rates, and not dining. No, I told them...the benefits were 50% off dining for 2, 33% off dining for 3, 25% off dining for 4, or 20% off dining alone. They went to the front office (next to the restaurant) to check, and even the FO did not know what this card was. That wasn't a problem for me to explain again to another server, but what really ticked me off was when a waiter finally came back with the bill and with the 20% discount deducted. I was signing on the bill when this guy said in a very condescending tone that "your card does not give discount, but since you asked so many times for it, we would give it to you as a goodwill". I was quite unhappy about this because he really made it sound like I was begging for a discount. So, I took out my notebook at the restaurant, accessed their WIFI, and called up the Starwood Privilege website. It was all there, plain to see, that I was right and they were wrong. It's little things like these...where it is clearly the staff who are not up to speed on benefits like these, but have to argue continuously with the customer that the customer is wrong. Anyway, rant over.

By the way, I got free high-speed internet in the suite this time. I'm not sure whether it was a Platinum benefit or not, but i seem to recall that the last time i was here (about 1 year ago), I did get charged for internet access.

Tomorrow, and for the next 3 days, I will move to the Westin. Rate will be USD 160/night. I checked spg.com, and noted that Westin has already upgraded me to a Crown Deluxe Room (it's like a mini-suite). Also noted in my reservation was free buffet breakfast (which is usually not the case...Platinums take breakfast in the Exec Lounge), free pressing of 1 suit, evening cocktail, etc. Wonder if these are new benefits for Platinums? I didn't get these before. I will have to ask tomorrow. Well, at the Westin, I have been 100% on upgrades as a Platinum, and I've probably stayed here about 15 times in the past 2 years. On a few occasions, even got upgraded to the residences side of the building, where the rooms are HUGE.

If anything particular to write about, will post another report here tomorrow.