HIDDY

Like most of these hotel deals booked on impulse much more than 50% won't be taken up especially by customers based out with Europe.
No matter how cheap the accommodation is once you start adding on all the extras like air fares/transfers/food costs/spending money. Suddenly, that bargain holiday isn't such a bargain after all.

I reckon the ICHG won't need to worry about losing out.

thaidai

egardless, if I go I'll try to spend a respectable amount of money at the hotel, even while booked in an Executive room, and be generous with gratuities. My hope is other FT'ers will also follow this mantra.^ ^ We will be booking 2 extra nites ,best rate seems to be 86euro with BF .just joined Priorty club and feel positive about IHG thanks to their choice to honour these bookings

gleff

There isn't really a clear rule here, even by chain.

VERY few people got the IC Tokyo Bay 172 yen rate honored. (I did, but only because I could show Orbitz airline tickets. And they reached out to ME because I had been a high volume customer.)

And Starwood honored the Le Meridien Khao Lak deal (I enjoyed my 2-bedroom oceanfront villa w/ private pool @ $33/night all-in incl. breakfast).

And they honored the W Times Square $25 rate, the Sheraton South Portland $19 rate and I'm looking forward to the 52 euro rate at the Prince de Galles over Thanksgiving.

But Le Parker Meridien NYC played quite a few games with their $71 rate.

And the St Regis London was crazy -- SPG honored a few nights without the extras, those who booked on Orbitz got the extras including Mercedes LHR transfers.

Then again, definitely ^ on this one. And ICHG had another of the all-time greats, the THB0.01 rate at the HI Phuket!

Ok, lots of other examples (Westin DFW Presidential Suite), some go one way, some the other. And I don't think there's an obvious chain-by-chain rule. Marriott is tough on these, but then I got a junior suite at the Renaissance SEA for $25 as did some other folks.

Not a clear Starwood bad, ICHG good. It's a mixed bag on hotel rates, we take what we can get, and in the end I'm surprised there really haven't been very many ICHG mistakes -- other than making all room types available on awards from time to time

CKone1982

Does anyone know if the 1-cent-reservation is with breakfast?

Tak

I had several good experience at SPG hotels, especially Bora Bora Nui(no longer SPG) and the Lanesborough.
Bora Bora was the negotiated rate, but it was still a good rate.
The Lanesborough just accepted the error rate.
Both are luxury hotels and their service was so good.

However, I do not decide where I am staying based on the handling of error rates.
The error rate is so unique and each case is so different from each other.

Anyway, this crown plaza did catch my eye, and I found excellent reviews.
I am sure many people paid attention to this hotel due the the error rate news, and I think that the hotel is having very good advertising through media, especially if the hotel honors the rate.
I guess a lot of nights will be cancelled anyway because many people made multiple reservations.

Does anyone know how many % of nights had been cancelled eventually on the previous error rates by SPG, Conrad so on???

Craig6z

Doesn't appear to be the case, even with Executive rooms. The hotel offers packages that include breakfast for two at an extra €16/day.

Not sure if high status in Priority Club gives you free breakfast though.

afrugal1

Thanks, gleff. I enjoyed this recap post. ^

MrHalliday

The International Herald Tribune was hanging
on my room door this morning here at Vienna IC.

I started reading it about noon at a city-center outdoor cafe.
On the back page was an article about this 1-cent rate !

Strange, with all this press...Flyertalk is never mentioned.
Probably just as well.

boxo

Shhhhhh.

Jaimito Cartero

It was linked in the Wired article, but not actually mentioned. I think that's for the best.

MrHalliday

OMG,
I was just channel-flipping around the news channels
here at IC Vienna, and the 1-cent deal was there
as a 30-second video story on Bloomberg.

edit: when I checked out of IC Vienna at 5 AM this morning,
I asked the desk guy if he heard about the Venice "promotion",
and he immediately said, "Oh, that one-cent deal".
Word travels quickly !

tc fly girl

Hats off to ICH for honoring the deal. As it appears FTers got most of the rooms, we should be sure to reward their actions by cancelling any rooms we're not going to use. It would be easy to just ignore a reservation we're not going to use because it's so little money but if they have the cancellation, they can rebook the room. The right thing to do. Personally, I'm using all my nights!!!!

Jaimito Cartero

I thought we were supposed to put them up for sale on eBay?

CKone1982

Aren't the bookings "nontransferable"???

GoingAway

He was kidding!!

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