Another vote for the Marriott. Great location, good rooms, got a good view too.

Do not stay at the Renaissance. As stated above , it is under renovation. The new thing is they start work at @ 0630. This is fairly absurd. The front desk told me the the start time just began as they are running very late on schedule. I told them the general manager must be an idiot. If you have to begin work at this hour , you need to close the hotel. They indicated that there had been requests for refunds and lots of cancellations. Not just a little noise - it drowned out the TV.

Here is a good thread for information on the Marriott - pictures, too.

I have seen some complaints that say that the Amsterdam Marriott charges a fee (~$60USD) per night for rooms booked in the Marriott Rewards Program!

Does anyone know if this is true?

If so, isn't that contrary to the spirit of the program?

I haven't seen that nor experienced it and I've stayed there 2x using MR points. I would advise you to call their reservations department and ask what is up with the rumours.

I was there in Nov on an award stay and didn't pay the fee.

Nope, they don't charge fees.

Cheers.

BTW - here are pics of the AMS Marriott for anyone interested.

http://public.fotki.com/SkiAdcock/ho...rdam-marriott/

Also, a thought just occurred to me. I remember reading either HKG or one of the China Marriotts people thought they were getting charged a fee, but it was some internal accounting thing & the way Marriott/hotel get compensated. There is no fee to the person redeeming awards & normally you never even see the internal stuff. My guess is that how the 'rumor' started w/ AMS Marriott.

Cheers.

People were being charged service fees for award stays at 7 properties in China/Hong Kong until the practice stopped in 2007 http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=593969

Ah, that explains why HKG & China came to mind. But other Marriott properties never charged a fee and definitely not AMS Marriott, so the OP can enjoy his/her award stay if s/he goes.

Cheers.

Not true. I had a reward stay at the Amsterdam Marriott (in Leidseplein) less than a month ago. There was no such fee.

In early March I stayed at the Amsterdam Marriott on a business trip.

I put a video overview together here http://yelloww.net/blog/2009/03/amsterdam-marriott which covers most of what I have in the text of this review, so if you are a visual person, go ahead and skip to the video -- otherwise, read along and watch the video afterwards.

I arrived in Amsterdam on an early flight at 7:30 am. I took a taxi to the hotel which cost 30 euros and arrived at the hotel at 8:30am. I had called ahead to ask for an early check-in, and indeed my room was ready. As a platinum member, I was upgraded to one of the hotels �Corner Executive Suites� room 423 � overlooking the Leidseplein. The staff at the front desk was very pleasant, they asked if this was my first time in Amsterdam, when I said yes, they pulled out a map, and circled a bunch of interesting touristy places that I might want to visit including the Ann Frank House, and the Van Gogh Museum.

The bell-boy showed me to my room and brought my luggage up. The room itself is quite large, with a king size bed. The room has a desk that faces the window so you can see the view while working on your laptop. The window opens so that you can get some fresh dutch air in the room. The desk also has Europoean 220V plugs and a US 120V outlet which is a nice touch. The US outlet is behind a plastic cover, so it took me a little while to find it. There was also an arm chair, and a small table.

The room has two closets that have lights inside when the doors are opened. There is also a well stocked mini-bar refrigerator that also has some room for your own beverages. I don�t typically partake of the mini-bar, but I do like space to store my own beverages so that they stay cool. Above the mini-bar was a pretty neat electric tea-kettle that would heat a cup of water in what seemed like an astonishing 15 seconds.

The bathroom is one of those �two room� bathrooms that has a room with the sink, and a separate room with the toilet and bathtub/shower. The bathtub�s water faucet is one of those that you�ll typically see in European hotels that has separate controls for the temperature and the water flow which is nice so that once you set your temperature, you can just turn the water on and off without fiddling with the temperature. The sink in the bathroom had two light switches, one for the main light, and another for a dim light underneath the sink which makes for a good night light.

The concierge lounge in the hotel is open 6am-midnight every day, with breakfast being served Mon-Fri 6:30am-10:30am, Hourderves Sun-Thurs 5:30pm-7:30pm and Desert Sun-Thurs 7:30pm-9:30pm. When meals aren�t being served, the lounge is open for �snacks� and beverages. In snacks were oranges, apples, kiwis, pretzels, and cookies. The beverages are a fairly wide selection of soft-drinks and coffee/tea. It looks like they *used* to serve breakfast on the weekends, but lounge cutbacks have hit here as well.

The breakfast served was fairly good, although no hot items. Mainly pastries, breads, hard boiled eggs, yogurt, cold breakfast meats, cheeses, and fruit.

The dinner Hourderves were quite good, with a different selection every night. One night I had a pretty tasty beef stew with potatoes. Other nights included shrimp cocktails, chicken wings, and meatballs. Dessert was typically Dutch apple pie and another pie or cake selection depending upon the day.

Overall a great hotel, highly recommended if you are making a trip to Amsterdam.

Marriott Amsterdam Video Review: http://yelloww.net/blog/2009/03/amsterdam-marriott

Very cool a video trip report

Great video! We will be staying there in a few weeks so this was a big help-especially the information about the US electrical outlet. We're staying on points and are hoping for a Plat upgrade, too.

Great report. To add to that, I did a very extensive trip report in 9/07 & updated it after my stay in 9/08. BTW - Chris and I had the same room! My trip report includes additional information on getting to the hotel, phone fees, restaurants, 'hold' fees, pictures including of another room, etc, etc.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/marri...9-13-07-a.html

Cheers.