I agree with HKF...so far I've been very pleased with my stays at Shangri-La...the services and people are just excellent...

But one thing that disappoints me a bit is their Golden Circle membership system...you need 10 stays in a year to get Executive status and 25 stays to get Elite...they only consider number of "stays", not number of "nights"...I've been staying at a Shangri-La as a Golden Circle member for 15 weeks this year (almost in a row, except the week of the Chinese New Year, considering it's now only the 16th or 17th week of 1999), and at least 4 or 5 nights each week...however, I've never gotten a room upgrade at all, not even once...Elite's do get suite upgrades at check-in, depending on availability, not Executive's though...but, considering I've spent 60+ nights here already (and probably 100+ more later this year)...I'm pretty sure I've brought them more business than many other Elite's...with almost all other hotel programs that I know of, these amount of stays would certainly qualify for top tier membership...while now I'm still only 60% to Elite...my colleagues who chose to stay at Hyatt are all Diamond now and got upgraded at least to Regency Club rooms all the time...sometimes I'm really thinking about staying at somewhere else for a day each week, so that I can double the number of stays and at the same time keep my elite status with Hyatt/Starwood/Hilton...

of course, I should only expect to get what I actually pay for...but, if I am so loyal to them, at least I think probably I deserve something more than a little gift that they gave me today when I checked in..."Since it's your 15th stay this year, here's a little souvenir for you"...

I've written to the Golden Circle Service Center, suggesting that they consider also the number of nights as criterion for deciding membership status...the answer is: "Your suggestion to consider the number of nights as upgrade criterion has been reviewed and discussed with the management for future enhancement of the program."...oh well..."future"...who knows what that means...