My personal feeling about complaints is that there are three types of issues:

1) Issues that get resolved quickly and with no hassle on the part of the customer (such as the lounge or breakfast coupons in your case, maybe the water),

2) Issues that take persistence on your part to get fixed (the hot water) and

3) Issues that never get resolved or have a significant impact on your stay, such as no hot water for the length of the stay, refusal to offer elite benes, etc.

For #1, I put it under the "Things happen." category and move on.

For #3, I definitely expect some sort of compensation.

The tricky part is #2: Depending on how I feel about the hotel or the staff's efforts to fix the problems, I may or may not say something to management. In this case, it is your favorite hotel, so it sounds like they were short-staffed for the holidays, although not having hot water is a particular pet peeve of mine.

I would say that you can complain if you want to, but you may want to give them the benefit of the doubt. If you notice a consistent pattern of things going downhill, that is the time to step it up.

Mike