This hotel is very difficult to deal with, even for platinums. My colleague has a reservation there tomorrow night. He's stuck in Boston due to a cancelled flight. He called at 6:33 p.m. to cancel tomorrow's reservation. He called immediately after his flight was cancelled, and the hotel refused to cancel without penalty. My colleague is a platinum and had extreme circumstances that warranted the cancellation. Still, the hotel was unyielding. They said their policy was strictly enforced and applied to everyone.

When I was in college, I did reservations for Cendant Hotels. Even those hotels allowed some leeway for extreme circumstances if the hotel was called directly. They wouldn't do it for "oh, I just changed my mind" or "I'm staying at the Hampton Inn down the street because I got a better rate." BUt things like cancelled flights, illness, or death certainly warranted an exception to the rule.

In general, I like the SPG brand and try to be somewhat loyal. My colleague is VERY loyal. But in Columbus, never again! They blew it on this one. And the Platinum line will get a call. It's really absurd for a podunk town to hold to a 24 hour cxl policy, and not making any exceptions to the rule is really unheard of in other brands.

UPDATE ON THIS: Score one of the Platinum Line. They managed "through threats and demands" (agent's words not mine) to get the reservation cancelled. The Platinum line was furious at the issue. They said that SPG doesn't treat its Platinums like that. So another thumbs up for SPG Platinum customer service. No wonder they and Hyatt are now my two programs of choice. And if Hyatt ever did away with FFN's or if SPG had a similar promo to FFN's, I'd leave Hyatt altogether as SPG is far superior.