My wife and I have just begun day three of our weeklong stay (using an HHonors award) at the Fess Parker Doubletree in Santa Barbara. Upon checkin, the front desk said "Mr. davesfolhr, you must travel a *lot*!" and thanked me for being a Gold member, even though she certainly must have known that my travel pales in comparison to Platinum members. She then gave me coupons for a complimentary breakfast on each day of our stay - since we'll probably only eat breakfast at the hotel three times, that's free brunch for both of us.

I asked for a room on the beach side of the hotel since I had read on FT that the other side was subject to loud trains during the night. They couldn't accomodate for the first night, but arranged at check-in for us to move to an upgraded room on the beach side yesterday morning, and a bellman moved everything into our new room by noon.

On top of that, the concierge is very helpful and everyone is very friendly. A great way for us to start our trip.

If I had to paint any negatives, they would be that the spa is being renovated so it's currently part of the fitness room, and the "business center" where I'm typing this consists of two open cubicles in a sometimes noisy lobby. But since I'm on vacation, I couldn't care less

Kudos to this Doubletree!