HadesNL

Yeez, that is indeed very sour ....
Very shortsighted and not creating a delightful ending.
Especially if you are a repeat guest.

Admittingly my experience at Accor's lounges are limited,
But over at IHG's lounges, as Royal Ambassador
i tend to email in advance + mention at checkin again that i will be having late checkout,
and wish to remain to wait in the Club Lounge as i still need to wait before going to the airport.
Usually with advance warning this is no problem and i can still enjoy the F&B.

lingua101

I understand your point.

I need to argue with the hotel for asking for 2pm late check out. This is the hotel that I used to stay there on monthly basis for a year (and this was so-called the "final" trip) and I normally will check out before 9am just before I go to client side. I told them may be I need 2pm but I may come back early. They insisted they can only give me 1pm. Only after "argument" and upon checking, they are ok with 2pm. I really find this redicolous.

I was told some people will take 2pm to become 3pm. But the staff can see that I am regular (and Platinum at that time) and normally checkout before 9am anyway. So not sure where is the hospitality.

Is there really so many bad apple customer out there?

lingua101

Well, I was staying on one of the property which by right lounge access is not granted to Platinum member. This was a Stayplus stay.

On checkin , I was told they can extend the lounge access for me on exception basis, which is great. I was asked also does it mean that I can only do breakfast in lounge only. I ws told I can choose either way. The next morning I decided to have breakfast in the restaurant. While I was having my brwakfast the staff came and asked for my membership card. She told me breakfast is not included and I have to pay. After "arguing" and checking as usual, she insisted that no comp breakfast. Then I do not feel to argue anymore but really got pissed.

Upon check out, I was complaining, and the staff was calling the supervisor and he told me that breakfast is complementaty and they can take that out from the bill.

Very strange.

hotel_user

There seem to be a lot of "new" staff members both in the hotels I have syated in and the lounges in Siagon. It may be a traning issue. Just had a short non accor at Hoi An ( town spoilt by day trip coach tours ), where the hotel we stayed in was traning 3 new members of staff. They were in the end process of traaning. All had done over four months so far, and had probbly two more to do before they could join the "teaam". However there also seemed to be a lor of penny pincing in the Accor Hotels ( Hotel des Arts especialy )

Goldorak

I have received a nice apology email from the GM saying that it shouldn’t have happened and that they have discussed my feedback within the management team and take measures for this to not happen again .
I appreciate this very honest response from the GM.

HadesNL

Thanks for letting us know the outcome, good that they got a wake up call !
Hope all confusion and despair is avoided ...

orbitmic

We actually just had exactly the same experience at the Sofitel Seoul (actually slightly better in terms of process in the sense that the lounge person told us pro-actively and apologetically that whilst we could sit in the lounge, unfortunately we could not enjoy the cocktail hour as it's only allowed on the nights you stay). The strangest part is that we had asked the day before if we would be able to enjoy the cocktail hour and the exact same person had said "yes of course, you can enjoy it and you won't be charged", and the last day ended up telling us the exact opposite (and his English was excellent so I don't think it was a misunderstanding) so I did wonder if either he had been told off by someone else for being too generous or felt one of his own colleagues would disapprove. It was a bit strange.

In our case, we didn't mind that much (in part because it was said nicely, in part because the service had been excellent throughout, including being very pro-active on late check out, and in part because the food whilst very good was always the same, so having had it for 4 evenings, I think it was easy to skip it on the 5th!). The lounge manager also came to offer us a sparkling water or soft drink if we wanted, I guess to try and mitigate the slightly awkward end note.

I find it a bit petty too, but to be honest, I could sort of see where they are coming from to the extent that they have a charge (quite a high one in fact) for people who are not allowed in the Club normally,, so I can sort of see how they might argue as they do that the cocktail hour is not really something we are entitled to on the day of departure. It's a bit like if granted a very early check in on the day of arrival on a breakfast or club inclusive rate, I would not necessarily expect them to give me breakfast on that morning even if it is nice if they do.

So I guess I wasn't as shocked as you were. I just felt something like "that's a bit silly really, it would be a nice and pretty painless way for them to make people who have had an otherwise excellent stay leave with a great impression" but I always assumed that being allowed in would be a bonus rather than default. It also just felt a bit odd because one feels "watched" (like I remember, when I went to the bathroom, I wondered if any staff would be silly enough to check I was not helping myself to the buffet on the way! ) so in that sense, like you I thought it made one feel a bit awkward/like the 5eme roue du carrosse, but I wasn't offended.