karthik

I recently stayed two nights at the Sheraton on a Cat 2 weekend award (a very good deal for this property at 3000 points/night) then did two paid nights at the San Cristobal. The two properties are separate hotels but part of the same structure. They share some facilities: the health club is shared, room service menus are identical (so from the same kitchen I assume), and the restaurants are interchangeable. Check in at both properties is 3pm and regular check out is 1pm. The Sheraton is a conference center and might deny you a late check out, but the San Cristobal confirmed that they do provide a 4pm check out to Gold/Plat members.

As a side note, I also walked past the Four Points (but didn't go inside) and noticed that there was an SPG Gold/Plat line that actually appeared to be staffed.

Sheraton Santiago:

I arrived at the Sheraton around 11am on a Friday. Took a cab from the airport: US$25, so upon later reading apparently I should've negotiated a bit more. Note that the US$100 "reciprocity fee" for a visa can be paid with a credit card now. No recognition of SPG status at this property, and the agent seemed annoyed when I nicely asked him if he'd been able to upgrade me. (The hotel was full, so he couldn't.) I was told it'd be about an hour, so I said I'd wait in the lobby. Waited almost two hours without anyone coming over (I didn't mind since I'd arrived well before check in time), so I went back to the front desk and it turned out my room had been ready for quite some time.

Also, there was no SPG Gold/Plat line, working or not, and if I had checked in at a busy time I would have been dying for a well-staffed SPG line. A couple of the times that I went through the lobby it was literally so full of bags that I had to weave my way through and even walk behind a desk at one point as giant groups of people arrived by bus. Probably about an hour to check in one time I went past. The lobby itself was designed just fine and decorated quite nicely, it just simply wasn't designed to handle that many people.

Anyways, I went up to my room, and as I seem to have very good luck with lately, my non-smoking room was a smoking room, as evidence by the smell and the ashtray. I'd reserved a non-smoking room AND I was asked at check-in whether I wanted smoking or non-smoking, and when I said non-smoking I was told that was fine. So at that point the guarantee of just "a room" becomes a guarantee of "a non-smoking room" to me. Called the front desk, got the same agent. He said they were very full but that he'd get back to me. Waited 40 minutes without hearing back, so I called and again got the same agent. I asked if he could at least get back to me and let me know how long it'd take at least, so he told me he'd call me back within 10 minutes. 30 minutes later with no call, I headed to the lobby and asked to speak to the manager on duty.

The manager on duty was at lunch, but the guest relations manager, who keeps regular office hours at a desk in the lobby (great touch—more hotels need to do that) came over to talk to me. She was extremely pleasant, professional, and apologetic; after we finished talking about the issue she went to the front desk and sorted out a room for me. Gave me her business card in case I had any further problems. Had the key in a couple minutes and went to the new room which was fine. The rooms themselves are in great shape, seeming fairly recently renovated. There was a international plug selection at the desk, standard Sweet Sleeper bed, 32" HD plasma, and a well layed out bathroom. The view I had was of a building and a hill which wasn't all that exciting. Turndown service was performed in the evening as expected.

Unfortunately, when I went to take a shower, the bathtub spigot came shooting off (and it's one of those ones where you have to pull up a plug on the tub spigot to make the shower work.) Took a rather difficult shower while holding the bathtub spigot in place with one hand. I called maintenance and they fixed it while I was away, though left the extremely loose shower handle that I'd also noted in the same condition.

Overall, this was a good stay: I would blame the check in problems on one bad agent, as the guest relations manager more than made up for that with the excellent handling of the situation. The bathroom problems show that the hotel needs to keep tabs on their rooms better. But overall, the room was well-appointed and comfortable, and the hotel was good in general. I would highly recommend this as a good value use of points in Santiago. Also, I found the SPG50 rates to be significantly lower than the web rates if you're doing a paid stay, so you may want to look into those. If you want luxury though, read on...