So is check-in at 3 or isn't it?

 
Old May 18, 2015, 2:47 pm
  #91  
 
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Front desk calling a room to inquire when I'm about to check out is something totally normal. Of course not at 10am, when checkout time is 12am.

But if it's after 12am, and I've not asked for a late checkout? Most normal thing in the world..
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Old May 18, 2015, 3:19 pm
  #92  
 
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Originally Posted by WilcoRoger
Q. "Would you also make Obama wait around or would you find a room for him?"
A. "Weeell, we surely would find something for the President"
Q. "Well, he's not coming, so I'll take that room"
Gotta remember to use this sometime!!😊
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Old May 18, 2015, 6:00 pm
  #93  
 
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Originally Posted by MSPeconomist
The OP seems satisfied, but I'm left with the feeling that the hotel thinks it's OK not to give an arriving elite a room until long past the check in time with no apology or anything, but because of the OP's "VIP" status from the sales representative and history of regularly booking meetings here, they somehow have apologized to the OP and won't threat the OP this way again. I'd be much happier if the hotel had realized that this isn't the way to treat *any* elite guest or more generally *any* guest at all, with any such victim deserving an apology and some customer service gesture.

I'm left with the feeling that so many seem to treat any 1-time situation or one that has a small % of occurring at a hotel (regardless of naming the property or not) as the SOP.


If the OP had waited and given the perfectly valid explanation of why it happened and then asked if it had happened to anyone else and suggestions for the future, there would still be folks threatening to boycott the property (if named).
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Old May 19, 2015, 7:52 am
  #94  
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The discussion of a "downgrade" also makes me wonder if the OP had booked a suite to begin with. Since hotels have fewer of these, I can see where the 3PM checkin/4PM checkout issue might occur with nontrivial frequency. (And no, I don't have a really good solution for the issue...other than to allow the arriving guest to take a downgraded room for 2-3 hours if they want to get in right away, take a shower, etc.)

My own experiences, having booked a non-suite, usually entail waiting for an upgrade vs. just taking some other random room in the hotel. The FD has a lot more to work with in that case...if I'm traveling solo, the random room is usually okay.
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Old May 19, 2015, 9:23 am
  #95  
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Originally Posted by clublounger
The front desk better NEVER call me and ask me when I'm leaving. I don't care who YOU are. To even suggest to the front desk to call a room to ask such a thing is inappropriate.
Hopefully the front desk wouldn't rudely ask when you're leaving, but they could apologetically ask whether there is some confusion regarding your departure date.
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Old May 19, 2015, 9:31 am
  #96  
 
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This is Exhibit A why not naming a property turns a potentially useful contribution into worthlessness. If you're going to be all secretive about it, don't even post in the first place.
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Old May 19, 2015, 10:00 am
  #97  
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Originally Posted by nineworldseries
This is Exhibit A why not naming a property turns a potentially useful contribution into worthlessness. If you're going to be all secretive about it, don't even post in the first place.
It is a worthwhile post. Maybe not to you, but to the OP and others. Personally I like seeing what others are running into so I can be better prepared should I have the same issue. As I stated above, the OP may have been able to get some property specific advice by naming the property, but that's their choice. I see all sorts of postings by people saying they will boycott a property due to an isolated issue and I see that as foolish. As we often find out there is more to the stories and the chances of the same thing happening may be very rare. And what do you do when you run out of choices in the area?
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Old May 19, 2015, 2:12 pm
  #98  
 
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Originally Posted by RogerD408
I see all sorts of postings by people saying they will boycott a property due to an isolated issue and I see that as foolish.
Agreed. Which is why I am in the 'name the property' camp. We can't know if something is an isolated issue or not if we don't know which properties we are talking about.

Having said that, I respect TT's point of view. I just have a different approach.

Cheers,
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Old May 19, 2015, 3:11 pm
  #99  
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Honestly, I start to get skeptical about the original story when someone won't name the property.

Makes me think maybe there's some embellishment going on...or maybe the facts aren't 100% as portrayed in the original post.

I'm not 100% sure what really happened here...I'm not buying the story that the hotel would somehow read this thread, figure out who the guest was, and somehow make their life hard later.
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Old May 19, 2015, 6:57 pm
  #100  
 
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Originally Posted by pinniped
Honestly, I start to get skeptical about the original story when someone won't name the property.

Makes me think maybe there's some embellishment going on...or maybe the facts aren't 100% as portrayed in the original post.

I'm not 100% sure what really happened here...I'm not buying the story that the hotel would somehow read this thread, figure out who the guest was, and somehow make their life hard later.
I think it's far more easier (for the property) to discover the ID of the OP if the property is named than you realise.

How many similarly open cases would there be at any one time?

Whether they take it out on the OP is another story.

Same reason why I do not complain about food while I still intend to have dinner at a restaurant. If you make an issue at a restaurant, you might want to consider not completing the meal.

While the management would never (I hope) consider taking it out on a guest on their premise, this feeling may not be shared amongst the front line staff such as the cooks or the housekeepers.
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Old May 19, 2015, 11:05 pm
  #101  
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Originally Posted by craz
Now Im dealing with a different person at the FD and I said I dont want that room least it reoccur, no problem I have room on the 9th.Funny 5 mins ago it was the 3rd or 18th.
Housekeeping is working, so every few minutes one more room becomes available. I don't see that as strange.
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Old May 19, 2015, 11:18 pm
  #102  
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Originally Posted by kasi
I can tell you that this neither happened to me at any starwood property.
Something like it has happened to me. I don't recall exactly what time I got my room, but it was later than the advertised check-in time. (A convention had the entire hotel and had told them not to move rooms.)

At another chain (Best Western) it became clear that Housekeeping was cleaning rooms in the order they felt like, not paying any attention to the fact that some of them were for people who wouldn't arrive for hours yet, and others were for people physically present.
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Old May 19, 2015, 11:22 pm
  #103  
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Originally Posted by WilcoRoger
Q. "Would you also make Obama wait around or would you find a room for him?"
A. "Weeell, we surely would find something for the President"
Q. "Well, he's not coming, so I'll take that room"
A. "When he comes, he, his entourage, and the Secret Service book two entire floors. They give us several weeks notice at a minimum, and spend around $250,000/night. A Secret Service agent shows up several hours early and collects all the keys."
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Old May 19, 2015, 11:41 pm
  #104  
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Originally Posted by BigBopper
The whole "they said I'm a VIP because I hold a meeting there ever year" makes the hotel worse in my eyes.

As I've mentioned many times on these boards, my wife is a senior special events marketing person. She's worked at some prestigious companies such as NBC, BMW, and Forbes (yay, a full name). She routinely books events for up to 10,000 people and rents entire properties.
There are different levels of VIPs.
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Old May 20, 2015, 4:05 am
  #105  
 
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I would encourage OP to name the property, as we have heard back from OP that the hotel has indeed stepped up recovery efforts and stated that some of the staff is new.
(Well, it looks like it was a new FD agent, and maybe a new manager? since the initial manager was also nonchalant about the issue. )

Let us know what is the final gesture which you have accepted.

I do give credit to properties who bother to recover from service lapses, so this is a positive.

The good part about sharing the property ID is we can see if there is a consistent pattern in the hotel delivering rooms way past official check-in time, as well as the nonchalant attitude when they fail to deliver the rooms at 3pm.
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