FYI, the hotel's website email for elites is currently not in compliance with the Marriott Bonvoy programme:

"· We can extend a one-category upgrade upon availability. The Barcelona EDITION is a modern luxury hotel located in the el Born district. We are in the heart of the city centre, right next to the Barcelona Cathedral and within short walking distance to the beach."

I've asked my Ambassador to resolve before my stay or move me to Cotton House. One should not have to bargain with Marriott's brand new flagship luxury properties in order to receive the programme terms.

In the end I had a very good stay here, but felt playing fast and loose with the English language and the Marriott terms created a lot of unnecessary distrust on their part. This is the best hard product in Barcelona (a city with lots of great choices), but I am uncomfortable with their "Marriottism" of standards.

As mentioned above, my confirmation booking said that as an Ambassador I was entitled to a "one category" upgrade on arrival, subject to availability. It seems clear to me this is against the programme terms and so I raised the issue with my Ambassador. He rather surprisingly came back with the interpretation from Marriott that the fact that terms say hotels can pick which rooms are in the upgrade pool means they can also pick to only upgrade people a max of one category by standard if they so choose. I obviously challenges this as it 1. Is not a valid interpretation of the English language and 2. Would mark a huge and unannounced change to the Marriott programme. For now I wait.

Secondly, I booked a room on a special rate incl. €50 and a one category upgrade at time of booking. Needless to see I didn't get an upgrade at time of booking which the hotel explained was because when I booked a Superior Room on an "Upgrade at time of booking" rate, I was already booking an upgraded room and so I had already received the upgrade. Again, unacceptable in my view and a manipulation on their part of what their own terms mean (upgrade at time of booking is a fairly standard concept).

In the end the drama was all for nothing as I was upgraded 2 categories to a "Loft Room" which is advertised as their entry level suite. That worked for me and met my expectations, but I will point out to anyone booking it that the Loft Room is in no way a Suite, Junior or otherwise. It is a marginally larger room with a second seating area and a second table. If I had paid for a Junior Suite I would be extremely unhappy.

Onto the stay itself, I really liked the hotel itself - such a shame to pointlessly pollute the experience. Service was excellent, the quality of the hard product is amongst the best I have ever seen at a Marriott anywhere and I liked the F&B offerings - from the cool rooftop to the London-inspired Punch Room and the high quality room service.

Make of this all what you will - Similar to my relationship with Marriott overall, I need to trade off recognition and great hotels vs. a lot of unnecessary ........ in the overall experience.

Thanks for the trip report. Sucks you had to jump through all the hoops, but other than that sounds like a good property.

Cheers.

Thanks for the report. Upcoming stay in a few weeks. Will report back on improvements in staff interaction.

I'm planning on a 5 night stay in May 2020, and this is one of the properties I'm considering. Has anyone else stayed here? How does it compare to the other nearby properties (Cotton House, Renaissance, LeMeridien)? If all goes as planned I should be Plat for this trip.

Looking forward to a 3-night stay there in September 2019!

Looks like there are no rooms with 2 beds ?

Regards,

El Puerco Volante

How did it go?

Barcelona EDITION Stay (Late Book Report!)
 

I'm somewhat new to Flyer Talk (not to the Boarding Area flyer blogs, though), and will give those of you subscribed my impressions of the Barcelona EDITION - my wife and I stayed there just over a year ago.
We have no status with any hotel chains, outside of what's glommed onto by cc's.
Planned our trip smack dab in the teeth of MWC 2019 (Mobile World Congress), so we zigged towards Girona for a few days prior to doubling back to Barcelona.
Checked in early afternoon, no hassles. King room with a view overlooking the neighboring Santa Caterina market.
As noted previously, the rooftop bar was fun, and the Punch Room excellent. We had top notch interactions with the front desk staff throughout our 3 night stay. Everyone was helpful and spoke English to a very high caliber. No room service, we had breakfast in the small restaurant prior to taking off and running out and about daily.
I'd include a few pics, but I'm still a noob. Gonna try to do something about that...

If anyone has questions, please let me know. I'll be happy to try to help

I had a stay at The Edition booked for late July. Just got an email that the hotel will be closed until September. It's a bummer, because I was looking forward to trying The Edition. Have switched to The Cotton House, hopefully that will stick.

Thank you for this. I assume my STARS agent will let me know if they email him about my stay in August. I’ve booked the W and Cotton House as back ups - glad they are still cheap!

Any recent stays? Do they upgrade titanium members here?

I stayed here for four nights last month. Initially, I was upgraded to a Deluxe from the base room - there was nothing else available between Deluxe and the Penthouse Suite. They did say at checkin that I could come and ask if anything better became available. So, after the first night, I noticed that a Loft was available for the last three nights - I went down to the desk and talked to the same man who checked me in. They then gave me the Loft room as a further upgrade.

I will say that a real upgrade (Loft and upwards - all the rooms below are just the same room with nicer cushions) is hard to come by during the summer, as they have a very limited number of premium rooms. I think the hotel only has 100 rooms, few of which are the larger ones.

It's a great hotel, by the way. I'm thinking of staying again next week. I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

Alternatively, I stayed here recently also and, having read that upgrades are scarce, tried the approach of contacting the hotel via the App the evening before to ask about the possibility of a paid upgrade (I realise this is sacrilegious on FT!) as I wanted to avoid a small room. Was offered a one bedroom suite for about 30% less than the cash price difference between that room and the entry level one I had originally booked. As I posted elsewhere, if you don’t care so much about free upgrades this is a superb hotel, I would also like to go back.

Thanks, I might try asking for cash upgrades if they won’t give me anything that’s a real upgrade (we all know anything below Loft at EDITION is the same room). But I’m hoping as a returning titanium guest with a STARS rate, I can wrangle something appropriate (I don’t expect the penthouse but I think higher tier elites should receive a room with some actual extra space).