Where's KathyWdrf when we need her :D

Westin NY @ Times Sq : Not the most luxurious Westin around, but its clean and functional. Some staff may have an attitude but the location makes up for the slight irritation.

Was there in the last weekend of March, part of a wedding that had a block there. Got an upgrade to a Spa Suite - upgraded bath stuff and an awesome massage chair in the room. It was a typical NY hotel with the Westin super bed, so it was nice, typical experience. Nothing that was "like woah" and certainly not as impressive as other hotels as mentioned.

Run of the mill Westin in a crowded, loud section of the city. The staff can cop an attitude and you may have to be aggressive just to get the room that you booked.

As a more traditional hotel (which means sheraton and westin, W EXCLUDED) which is the best out of the two sheratons and the Westin. I know this has been discussed before but the W's always win. So if W isn't an option as i dont like the modern I am more traditional which is the best? I am leaning towards sheraton hotels and towers just based on website pictures of lobby and lounge. Any thoughts???

If location is not a factor, the Westin Times Square - hands-down, is the winner between the Sheratons and the Westin in NYC. The rooms are very large by NYC standards and the hotel is holding up well.

If location is important to you, I think that you would choose the hotel that is the closest to your destination. ;)

Special rates at Westin New York Times Square
 

I have just come across a very strange situation with a points stay booking I had made at the Westin Times Square New York. A concierge at the Starwood Platinum desk is currently looking into what may have happened, but is equally perplexed. Here goes:

1. Sometime in early May, I had booked 2 nights using points (24,000 points in all) at the Westin NY Times Square. The booking was for July 8-10.

2. On May 15, I called the Platinum Concierge desk and asked them to change the booking to July 9-11. They did this by cancelling the original booking, refunding the points, and then making a fresh booking.

3. On June 30, I logged onto my SPG account online, and printed out the confirmation of my July 9-11 booking prior to embarking on my trip to the East Coast. So far, so good.

4. Last night (July 3), I logged on to my account to check my confirmation number as I wanted to change the booking to one night only (July 10-11 only), and I found that the booking was now showing as cancelled, though just three days earlier I had printed out the confirmation. I immediately called the SPG Platinum desk to find out what was going on.

5. The Platinum concierge, who is being very helpful, called the hotel and was told that the booking had been cancelled by me the day it was made, ie May 15! I told the concierge that I had a printout from June 30 showing the reservation was confirmed and intact, which he asked me to fax over to him (the date printed is in the footer of the printout).

6. He then called back saying that the system showed it had been cancelled on May 15, and that there were no rooms available at the property any more to re-book me. I asked what happened to my points that I had used to make the booking, and he said that it was showing it was re-deposited into my account on May 15.

7. The system shows no trace of the original booking and cancellation for July 8-10, but it does show the points taken out and redeposited for that booking. So now it looks like the points were given back to me for the mystery cancellation of the second booking!

Now I have been Starwood Platinum for several years now, and have never had something like this happen before! I had complete faith in the online account management, so I never bothered to save the confirmation and cancellation emails, since I could always access this info online. So now I am out of 24,000 points and no room at the hotel for the dates I was booked to be there! The very helpful Platinum concierge did manage to find me a room for July 10 night at the W Union Square for 13,500 points (says the regular 12,000 pts is not available), but is at a loss to explain what happened to the original booking, how was it possible that I printed out the confirmation on June 30 when the system now shows the booking was cancelled on May 15, what happended to my 24,000 points, etc etc.

Anyone had something like this happen to them before? Any tips on how to proceed? William, anything you can do to try to help please? At this point all I want is my 24,000 points back; an explanation of what went wrong would be a bonus. Note that the hotel is showing completely sold out now for those dates, which makes me wonder if it is possible that an over-zealous res agent did some creative cancellatons to try to make more room at the Inn? :confused:

Sankaps.

I had a similar thing happen with a disappearing reservation and no subsequent rooms left when I tried to get it back. Called the Cust Serv number, it took the agent about 1 hr but she managed to reconstruct everything.

Great customer service on Starwood's behalf.

This is very disturbing. When you make a points reservation and use the Platinum Concierge to use additional points to upgrade to a suite, it is no longer accessible online. We have this situation this summer in Paris.

Hard to imagine how to protect ourselves in these situations.

thats rediculous and clearly spg's fault if all is as you say it was.
i would a)demand all 24k points back B)demand the difference in the 13.5k they made u pay for the W and 12k u originally wanted to pay c)demand they get your room at the westin back and if they cant, they should give u your night at the W for free. if its completely their fault, then they should cover everything, you should have to deal with this...

r

Indeed, I think this is a major flaw in the system and utterly frustrating. What are we to do? Call SPG everyday to make sure the reservation is still there? :(

Similar incident happened to me this week. I have an upcoming family vacation to South America next month. Last week I checked my reservations online and could not locate one of them. A call to SPG indicated the reservation was there but somehow, my Plat SPG number had been removed from te reservation. She added it back and now everythng is ok.

So Sankaps, have you contacted customer service per MapleLeaf's post?

I had a similar incident involving the Westin Times Square, but this time it was in my favor. I had 11,000 points deducted for a December 31, 2005 one-night stay and I actually stayed there. The 11,000 points deducted were then added back to my account on December 31. I had major problems with the original room they assigned me, so I thought it was a goodwill gesture from the manager to comp my room that night. Certainly nothing to complain about! But now I am not so sure why this happened.

I also had a mysterious reservation appear in my account that was under a different SPG number and name. I did not recognize the name or SPG number. That reservation disappeared after the date of the hotel stay.

Finally, I have an email confirmation for a stay at the Sheraton Pretoria that was reserved at spg.com in Fenruary for a stay in October 2006. Now the reservation has vanished without a trace (except for 4,000 points deducted from my account). Even though I have the confirmation email, the system shows that reservation does not exist (when I type in the confirmation no.) and no cancellation is shown, either!!

SPG.com obviously has major security issues with their reservation system. I plan to inquire further on the Pretoria reservation.

i've had "irregularities" such as this happen with my account. basically, the platinum concierge usually passes me off to customer service. customer service usually takes my name and number and calls me back after figuring out what happened.

it is NOT uncommon and it IS annoying.

I agree with the beginning part. That SPG should get the OP back into the Westin if thats what they want for the 1 night for 12k. If SPG cant then the W should cost the OP no more then 12k or 13.5k if SPG adds the other 1.5k into their acct and as long as the OP agrees. At least an Upgraded room for the reg pts price with SPG paying the difference

If its the Westins fault then it should betreated no different then a Walk is.