escape4

I had my 3rd stay here in the last 7 weeks (8 nights in total). My upgrades are getting progressively better: first stay no upgrade at all, second stay was Royal Club room, and this time was Royal Club Prestige room, which is a bit larger than the Royal Club room. So upgrades are better, but the suite upgrade is still elusive. All three times I checked spg.com before check-in and the Athenee Suite was not available. So my belief remains that they upgrade Platinums to a suite when available; the issue is simply that it's not available very frequently because they probably do not have many of them in the hotel. It won't stop me from coming back - this property is still excellent value. On occasions where I need the extra space, the Millenium Hilton or Royal Orchid Sheraton have several suites available. You simply have to compromise if you go there; those properties are a notch below Athenee.

escape4

Nice welcome gift

3rdworldresident

MSPeconomist

When I stayed here during its LRM days, I had the impression that there was a one bedroom suite on every corner of the building on every floor except possibly the very top floors with specialty suites and the club lounge. However, the suite across the hall from me seemed to be occupied by someone who was staying for a very long time, which was surprising given that the next building or two in the complex (to your right as you walk out the front door of the lobby) seemed to contain apartments (although there seemed to be some rental/condo offices in a building too as well as some local lunchtime food outlets).

kkl

escape4

I took a couple of pictures of floor plans a few days ago during my last stay to address your comment. Looking at the 23rd floor, it is possibly a standard floor (not sure) because it does not seem to have specialty suites. It looks like there are 3 suites on that floor. If floors below are similar, then 3 suites per floor is not bad at all. So I would conclude that suite upgrades are difficult recently due to high occupancy of the hotel rather than a small(er) number of suites relative to basic rooms.

The 28th floor is probably less standard than floors below the Club Lounge (26th). My room was in the corner but not a suite - other corners seem to have specialty suites.

KosherKimchee

The amount of dirt on those Fire Escape Plan signs is concerning. Hope that isn't reflective of the level of cleanliness around the hotel.

escape4

I think those are more stains rather than dirt. The hotel is very clean for sure - no worries there.

I am now 0/4 on suite upgrades for my stays in the last 2 months (4 stays, 11 nights). Once again there were no suites available at check-in time on spg.com.

I have been very positive about this hotel in all my comments in this thread. However I was disappointed by a mishap during our last stay. I had never been forced to change rooms during a stay by any hotel before, except when I made two separate bookings for different room types, then it's fully understandable. But for our last stay at Athenee, it was only one booking for 3 nights. We were forced to move to another room at 6pm on the last evening. They offered a better room but I was very tired and still jetlagged (I had only slept from 11pm to 2am the night before) so I was about to go to sleep when I got a call at 6pm. Our stuff was scattered everywhere in the room and I did not have the energy to pack up. I just wanted to sleep and we had early check-out the next day so no chance to enjoy a better room anyway. I usually do not mind going through the hassle of changing rooms if I am offered a better room during our stay, because I enjoy room upgrades. But only if there is enough time to make it worthwhile, and only if I am told in advance. If I am forced into it right before I go to sleep, with no warning, then it's another story.

We were told that there was planned maintenance planned and they would use chemicals on our floor so the entire floor had to be empty. And by the way, I called at 11am that morning to inform them we were leaving the room and we would be back early so I asked housekeeping for the room to be done by the time we came back at 2pm. When we came back, the room was not done like I requested, probably because they knew we would have to move, but nobody told us.

Also, if they plan for maintenance on our last day, why did we not receive another room somewhere else in the hotel at check-in which would not require a move? Or inform me at check-in that we'll move on the last night for a better room, and then I will be happy to accommodate the hotel because I have always been treated well so I can reciprocate.

If I had to think of a hotel that was ever going to force us to move to a different room, no way I would have imagined it would be a hotel of the caliber of Athenee. Not the end of the world, but disappointing nonetheless.

MSPeconomist

Yikes. I'm trying to imagine what chemicals a hotel would use on the floor that would require an entire floor of the hotel to be empty. The only thing that comes to mind would be some aggressive treatment for insect infestations (like cockroaches) using chemicals that are harmful to humans, although I realize that what's done in foreign countries can be somewhat different.

paolo64

Central90210

UASPG

Since the rates are now consistently higher at The Athenee, in comparison to the SGS, but only the SGS is moving up one category, it means that the hotel is selling a good part of its rooms at a lower rates (groups, corporate accounts, etc ...) than the ones found on spg.com. The upgraded category of the SGS shows that the average yearly revenue per room is higher than at The Athenee.

MSPeconomist

I haven't seen any evidence of groups, although its location would make this hotel natural for USA embassy visitors.

dsquared37

Having seen many young Marines absolutely wide eyed at the prospect of free booze in the lounge I'd say Conrad takes the preponderance of those.

escape4

I wrote a couple of months ago:
"Athenee is in a similar price range as SGS. Of course, several people on FT love the SGS and I do too. But in what ways is SGS better? I am not quite sure why SGS gets so much more love than Athenee."

Unfortunately, at this stage I am afraid I would have to backtrack and agree with Central90210. I cannot picture SGS handling the situation like Athenee did.