FatManInNYC

Sounds like we there at the same time, yosithezet - it would have been nice to meet you.

I had four stays at the Athenee during May and June and each was spectacular. As a plat I was fortunate enough to be upgraded to a suite each stay, offered a free happy hour in one of several bars, given access to the club floor and free breakfast buffet in the ground floor cafe.

The staff is exceptional, particularly the concierge team, and the doyenne of the kitchen staff is delightful - sharing a few words with her each morning became part of my routine.

The Athenee is now my preferred Bangkok property.

TRAVELSIG

Thanks FatManInNYC for the great trip report. It has been a little while now since I have been to the P.A.- will have to check it out on the next trip!

ws8n

I couldn't find references on the restaurants at PA. Can someone give reviews of the restaurants and recomendations?

I assume the food credit can be split up over dinner and lunch the next day?

yosithezet

Always great to meet other FTers. I met up with Kats in the PA and then with Tak in the WGS a week later.

I try to keep up with the following threads to know when others are around.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/thail...l#post11925171

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/starw...008-9-a-3.html

Plaza Athenee, BKK (Starwood)

In case anyone is interested:

We have launched a special promotion which - basically - entitles the guest to 1 night free for every night they book (1+1). The rate can currently be found when searching any set of dates from the homepage and sorting by price - low to high - as long as the dates meet the following requirements:

• Minimum 2 night length of stay
• Booked between now and the 14th of July, 2009
• Stay between now and the 30th of September, 2009

Rates start at THB 5'600 ++
(so - after discount - the per night the price is THB 2'800++)

The best part? (apart from the price, of course!)
For those that are not (yet) Platinum Preferred Guests, this rate includes access to our expansive daily buffet breakfast at The Rain Tree.


This has not yet gone onto our Special Offers Page ("Exclusive Offers" section) - but will be there by tomorrow, in which case you will only see the offer when you select the link in our "Exclusive Offers" section.


You can click here for the link to the booking page.

yosithezet

I'm not sure this is actually 1 paid plus 1 free. If you take two nights you are paying THB 5600++ or THB 2800++/night.

Still a good rate, but I think it isn't described quite right.

buschoi

^ I was un-decided between PA (booked via last FT promotion) and WGS for my first stay in Bangkok in mid-July. I have read comments on other sites indicating PA is nicer in all aspects, but I am still tied to the Heavenly bed. Now this deal should be good enough to persuade me to stay at PA if the rate is as stated.

MattTaiwan

We have two guests on FTers meeting list at this moment:

Jun 20 - Jun 21 / Westin Grande Sukhumvit Bangkok / yosithezet
Jun 20 - Jun 22 / Le Méridien Bangkok / Starwood Lurker II

Welcome to update your further stay whatever in PA or other SPG properties right here.

Enjoy your trip!

Tak

Dear yosithezet

It was nice to have met you there!
We will see you in Hawaii next time.

trog

Warning: I booked the 5000 baht eat + drink rate on May 31 for a reservation beginning June 25. At the time, the reservation on SPG and the confirmation email clearly stated that the reservation could be cancelled with no penalty until the day of arrival.

Since I now cannot make it to BKK until later this summer, I just went online to cancel the reservation and the details now stated that the reservation was nonrefundable. I called the Plat line and I was told that I needed to call back during business hours in BKK so they could take up the issue with the hotel.

I then checked the PAs special offers page on SPG and saw that the eat + drink rate had increased to 5600 baht and is now a nonrefundable rate.

I have the confirmation email from May 31 proving that at the time I booked this was a refundable rate, so I am not worried about being unfairly charged for cancelling the reservation, but it really is a pain to have to call SPG multiple times and have them contact the hotel directly in order to ensure that I am not charged for cancelling a refundable reservation.

By the way, I stayed at the hotel in April last year on a C+P rate and received an upgrade to an excellent suite, really enjoyed the breakfast and had a wonderful stay at the hotel, so hopefully this is just a minor mix up. Would really like to stay here again the next time I am in BKK as long as the rates stay competitive and cancellable.

kats

So this is "Pay THB5,600 for the first night and you get the 2nd night free". I almost thought the offer was THB2,800 for 2 nights. I will be back to PA on June 26-28 if anybody is around.

estnet

It is happened to me a few times - there is no reason that if the hotel changes its cancellation policy that all previous reservations have their terms changed!
It is a total waste of time for *wood reservations and their customers to have to manually go back and change it to the original terms

trog

Was able to later cancel without penalty the PA eat + drink rate reservation booked as a cancellable reservation which had been changed without my knowledge to a non cancellable/non refundable reservation.

-Called the customer service line again and spoke with a more helpful rep.

-Rep. transferred me to a supervisor (in corporate?) who asked me to forward her the original res. confirmation email from May confirming that the res. could be cancelled until 12pm arrival day without penalty.

-Supervisor called the hotel directly (Sat. morn. BKK time) and after a pretty long wait the PA agreed to cancel the res. without penalty.

If I had not saved the original confirmation email I wonder if I would have been out 10K baht or so for cancelling this two night stay originally booked as a cancellable reservation? Between the calls to SPG and digging for the confirmation email I only wasted 45 min. to an hour of my time, guess that isn't too bad to avoid being charged the 10K baht. Maybe they would have at least shipped me 10K baht of food if I had lost the original email

Except for these issues I still really like this hotel and would be glad to stay again. Hopefully there will be some good refundable deals for when I am in BKK again since I will personally never book a non cancellable reservation.

Plaza Athenee, BKK (Starwood)

We agree with this from the start, and that's why this changes in the cancellation policy only applies to bookings where the reservation confirmation message states that the booking is non-refundable.

We have actually placed comments into all bookings that were made before the 17th of June, 2009, where the rules stipulate full refund, that this should will still be honored. Our colleagues at the Contact Centres have also been notified.

We apologize if there was / is any confusion or misunderstanding - we are doing our utmost to ensure that all appropriate parties and channels are notified.

Best regards,
Plaza Athenee, BKK (Starwood)

Edit:
We have also updated the appropriate information on Flyertalk

Kalboz

Thank you for the great offer. I have a question please. I looked for an answer at the above referenced webpage to no avail:

Can we have 3 separate consecutive bookings for 2 nights each under this promotion for a total of 6 nights & 3 stays?

Thank you again for being here.