Originally Posted by Shareholder
We all were well aware that there was a glitch in the award booking engine that made these Villas available for a few lucky souls who redeemed their awards here. Normally awards are basic level rooms, and unless you are paying a huge premium, why should they be anything but? Technically we are not supposed to receive any upgrade or other Ambassador/RA benefits with our award stays, but most properties seem to overlook this and extend benefits including some form of room upgrade. To complain that you cannot redeem 30K for a $1,200 room ... I have little sympathy for such a complaint.
Well, it wasn't a complaint. Just feel sad that I didn't have a chance to take advantage on the "beautiful" mistake they made. I first thought it wasn't a mistake since people hardly thought about going to Bali after two bombs, and thought the hotel probably wanted to get more visitors to Bali by giving out Imperial villa for redemption.
If they really made a mistake, they would have it fixed within hours or days, and don't understand why they kept for a long period of time letting people redeem Imperial villa. Besides, they could have refused giving out the Villa when the guest (who booked I.V. by points) checked in, and told directly it was a mistake. Think about it, if it was a mistake, do you think the hotel would bother to use a Jaguar to pick you up from the airport?
Same thing happened to me couple years ago: Points redemption for Presidential Suite was available at Holiday Inn Bangkok, so I booked it. However, when I checked in, they told me it was a mistake, and refused to give me the suite. I argued with them for a while, but it didn't help. They insisted there were no ways they could give me the President suite even though they knew it was a mistake they created. The best they could give me was an executive room, so finally I asked them to cancel my reward reservation and put the points back to my account, and decided to pay for the nights since I thought it was not worth to waste the points for $70/night stay. If it wasn't because of presidential suite, I wouldn't even think of staying in a 3 stars hotel in Bangkok. Usually I stay at Sukhothai, IC, 4 Season or Banyan Tree because of cheaper room rate in luxury hotels in Thailand than other big cities worldwide.
In the future, if there will be any redemption on anything better than basic room, I will for sure call or email them to make sure it is not a mistake.
I agree technically we are not supposed to receive any upgrade or other Ambassador/RA benefits with our award stays, but I don't think the properties seem to overlook this; they just want to keep you coming back, it is not gonna hurt them if they give you a free upgrade and extend benefits. What they did was to win your heart, so you can come back again in the future. I'll be very surprised if they are very strict on reward night, especially on IC hotels.