GUWonder

You are free to perceive or imagine things as you wish, but your claims about me are unsupported by what I know about myself.

I am not defending the OP but I am defending certain principles of mine in opposing unfair presumptions about the OP and about national/ethnic/religious origins/affiliations in relation to the OP.

Your post's claim about my relationship to Starwood is also false. Overall I have had a very good relationship with Starwood, both as a customer and as with other business relationships with Starwood. If anything, my current level of overall satisfaction with Starwood is reasonably high, but that doesn't mean I will default to entertaining the worst about an FTer or about large groups of people just because they had a negative customer service experience that may or may not be representative of my own experiences at other times/places.

You are free to imagine what you wish about me, but the imagination/ perceptions you have about me aren't rooted in the facts about me that I know better than anyone.

pinniped

I think this is an awesome idea as long as the proceedings can be live-streamed on FT and I get some sort of bulk discount on popcorn. @:-)

jibi

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Dr. HFH

What am I missing here?

jibi

I just find it rather odd that the OP has been visiting FT (and likely keeping up with this explosion of a thread) and hasn't posted anything in nearly a week. I understand he is in Greece, etc., but there's obviously a lot of conjecture being thrown around and the OP has not responded at all... just a loss in credibility, imo.

GUWonder

Nothing odd about it at all. Usually, if some bridges have been burned and a party has been cut off from going across the burned/burning bridges, it is credible action to monitor the situation and utilize other bridges that aren't being burned by the pitchfork mob, especially one that includes those who can entertain and perhaps even try to justify racism against some ethnicities in order to blame the OP.

If I were to advise the American OP at this point, I would recommend to hold back and limit or deny fielding hostile crowd questions on this matter if this matter is already being dealt with via other channels. To do as the American OP has done in holding back in this thread, monitoring the situation and using other bridges and back channels at this point is the opposite of what is usually done by people who try to use TA to extort hoteliers/hotel management to the extreme with a bad TA review.

LuisHK

After 19 pages of discussion we have developed lots of interesting assumptions and theories but not really going anywhere

Simply reading whatever OP had presented it's hard to come to a reasonable conclusion.

Since the OP had been reading, it would be interesting if the affected parties come forward with an updated piece of story/ clarification.

SgFred

Well, seeing that somehow most of the thread seems to think the OP may be in the wrong (more than the hotel), I would refrain from posting as the OP.

Less is sometimes more.

However, I really do think throwing the guest out is really unbelievable, unless the guest had asked to throw out, like a dare or a bargain (eg refund me and I will leave).

fireworksboy

Bolded part would not shock me.

GUWonder

Refund and leave isn't really a great bargain. The OP has opportunity costs to face too and had already invested in a trip to the hotel.

Keep in mind the following: for plenty of people when it comes to "splurging" using points or cash, the hotel is often the destination at least as much as or more than the locality being visited.

As some have realized or dreaded, using points for "anniversary"/honeymoon type trips at luxury hotel destinations is less likely to mean as good upgrades and service as if paying cash or ponying up cash for better upgrades. That can result in customer disappointment too, as it has before often enough.

craz

I could imagine the OP (if hes American no one knows for sure! unless he told someone that he has citizenship ) would run into the same problem had he chosen the likes of any place with an OWB. When you look at most of the hotels with these type of rooms they dont show you their standard land rooms, but their top of the line OWBs. I could see the OP arriving into the Maldives expecting as a SPG GOLD to have been upgraded to an OWB after all he probably let them know its his 20th anniversity, only to find out hes in a land based wing w/o even an ocean view

Look 240,000 pts isnt chump change and I too if I didnt do my due diligence homework, would have been as as the OP, upon arriving only to learn the whole hotel is not Luxury at all. Difference is the buck would have stopped with the responsible party for having chosen this hotel = ME in our case the OP. It just seems either he wanted out and all his pts refunded or the presidental suite to brag to his wife about and his friends and family.

Ive stayed at many chains and most post the pics of their top rooms, which are not in the upgrade pool, are the ones that are usually displayed with the great views and furnishings. To get them you better be willing and able to shell some big bucks. Every so often they are scored as an upgrade but definitely its not something to expect no matter the ocassion your staying at the hotel for. It does seem once there the OP wasnt happy with what his 240k got him, and I dont blame him but its a SOL situation and it seems he decided to get what he felt was his pts worth or he will do what he has to get them back.

I dont expect to hear from the OP unless SPG does to him like the Owner did and give him the boot. If he gets everything plus more back from SPG he most likley wont post that, so unless he strikes out with SPG I wouldnt expect to be hearing from him, and no way will he ever tell the whole story if its not 100% all in his favor

supatight80

OP is an american as stated on his previous posts.

LuisHK

..... but contacting the consulate over this type of dispute? come on~

GUWonder

When the owner threatens you with calling the police in a country where the police force has a bunch of people in it who support or are members of a party that engages in racist attacks (including against Americans of non-European ethnic backgrounds), I'm not surprised that some US citizens (including the OP) would want to inform a US Embassy/Consulate about their whereabouts. Americans are asked by US Consulate/Embassy staff to register their whereabouts in the country, no less so when they feel potentially endangered in the foreign country. We Americans even have an online trip and/or residence registration system provided by the US State Department -- I don't use it but there are plenty who do or consider it. STEP -- Smart Traveler Enrollment Program -- is meant as an alert system for sending out info to US citizens under some conditions but it has been used because people want the government to know where they are for other reasons too.

Indeed.

FD1971

I also use posts from FT quite often to discuss them with clients, because they often give everyone a good idea how demanding certain customers have become these days.

It also serves as a reminder that in this day and age a service provider should be as honest , open and transparent about his service items as possible just to avoid the rat tail costs (of all kinds) resulting from those unhappy customers.

In general, one can say that there are two types of very demanding customers:

Type one is a customer, who barely achieved the minimum requirements for getting elite status and consequently demands every single perk all the time (without any exception)

If I read the OP’s signature listing several Gold cards from IHG, SPG etc. he probably fits the description.

Type two is even worse, he normally holds top status and invested quite some (private) money to reach it. He just cares about return on investment and due to this top status, he considers himself to be DiCaprio on the Titanic demanding everything possible. He does not care for excuses and cannot tolerate the fact that there are bigger fishes in the pond, let alone guests, who actually paid for a service.

I agree 100%. The threshold to get the authorities involved should be discussed with the staff (I often recommend to have two persons present in those situations or at least have somebody else monitor the situation) and in everybody’s interest the guest should be asked to leave. It is a thin line and Austria, Zell am See in particular, made headlines in recent weeks for their approach telling foreigners how to behave or blend in locally.

Absolutely, the hotel handled the situation brilliantly.

But we can assume what happened before. Beginning of the season, hotel did not check the rooms properly before renting them for the first time again, so the usual things happened. Dust, drainage, rebooting of certain systems needed etc.

Under the bottom line, the hotel could not care less. The LC resorts in Greece and Italy are full in summer anyway, often charge rates in excess of $ 1000 and are closed for most of the year (because the summer is sooo profitable) so a negative review on TA is washed away with an Ouzo and that’s about it.

Getting the diplomat’s involved is a waste of time and money, hence I like to recommend saving the money for a stay at the Diplomat in Hollywood.