Is the 2 pm late checkout for Gold guaranteed or not? (I'm assuming that Moxy isn't a resort or convention property.)

It’s not.

In my experience when someone writes a long post like that and leaves out such a central piece of information, they've done so conciously

OP since you are good at making blanket statements, haven't you ever considered that these young, attractive, "wealthy" types are fairing better because they have higher loyalty status than gold people like you?

Quite clear that you were trying to score an upgrade or LCO since management told you it's simply not possible to offer this benefit to all gold guests. There's an order on who gets these benefits first and unfortunately for you, you're just way down at the bottom of the list.

Do yourself a favour and stop using the word 'inconsistent' and replace it with 'subject to availability'. This will help temper your expectations.

Absolutely correct. A hotel can certainly go above and beyond what they offer their guests. The bare minimum is stated in the Terms and Conditions. Why shouldn't a hotel reward a guest who is highly valued by that hotel? One year our office racked up 100+ nights at a single hotel. Most of our employees were Silver or Gold. Did the hotel treat us nicely? You bet they did, and we returned in kind by giving them all of our stays for that city. Similar we hosted a convention at a hotel. Figure at least 150 rooms sold for the convention for multiple days + the use of the convention & dining facilities. Did they treat our lowly Silver employees like royalty? Absolutely.

It also helps to not badger the front desk. I'll stand firm on 4pm checkout for Titanium/Platinum if I absolutely need it, but everything else is gravy at this point. Nice to have, but don't expect it every time. Especially for lower-level statuses.

If you've ever seen the guests who wander in with Lifetime Platinum, Lifetime Titanium, or even regular Platinum/Titanium, I can assure you that most of them probably aren't young, may have been attractive many years ago, and aren't driving around in Bentleys. Sure, there will be a few, but they definitely don't make up the majority of the class.

What about middle class and ugly? What should they be getting because I've been getting fewer macarons - must be because I'm not as skinny as I used to be?

The OP has not returned and does not appear likely to explain what loyalty perks they feel they were erroneously deprived, or address any of the other issues raised.

The one thing that confuses me about this incident is how it resulted in several calls from the GM and inconsistent messaging from Bonvoy CS.

The inconsistent messaging from Customer Service was most likely due to their not receiving correct or complete information. Similar to the post that fails to mention what Gold perks were not offered. Maybe they made too definitive a statement to start, then backed off with more information.

Yes, that's what I was thinking too - there must have been a significant misrepresentation of facts. Otherwise it's inconceivable how the below (from the OP) happened, when usually Bonvoy CS seem to be very reluctant to take an explicit position against a property's actions even when it's cut and dry that something should have been provided:

"Gold perks remained the same and they should have been offered to me, as a sorry they awarded me some bonus points and said they would contact the hotel to put them straight."

The OP is an infrequent FT user and has not actually logged on since making the post.

In FTs experience when someone is repeatedly hounded by ‘the usual suspects’ for an answer (the nastiest posts of which have had to be deleted), they are much less likely to reply.

Let’s allow the OP some time.

I believe I have just been called a “usual suspect” ! Hahahah

ElevatorEnthusiast you're caught in a never ending circle: Lots of Macarons -> Less Skinny -> Treated to Less Complimentary Macrons -> Get Skinny Again -> Back to Lots of Macrons and the circle continues. LOL....


--Jon

Even when I was an Ambassador, I never thought an upgrade was guaranteed. I always book a room I will be happy with - booking something you're not going to like and trusting you're going to get something better just seems like a recipe for disaster. Things like breakfast, however, should always be extended depending on the brand and your status. Unfortunately, a Moxy and Gold status is not going to get you much.

That is kind of what I was getting. Obviously not well said.
Moxy's is so low category I bought a room package with some perks and didn't even get those.