JBauer

So I'm a Plat 100 as of this week. Was looking for a fun family spot for our two families with 4 small kids combined. Ideally we wanted a 2 room suite so kids could hang. Not easy to find, but I found one at Westin Puerta Vallarta in Mexico. I called Plat concierge. They put me in touch with hotel. Hotel said yes, you book a Grand suite and a connecting Royal Beach Club room-- thus a 2 bedroom suite. Fair enough. I used points for base rooms then paid an extra $260 to confirm connecting and upgrade to Beach Club floor. Last month I emailed to confirm. They confirmed via email. All set. 2 room suite with connecting rooms. Well you can see where this is going...check in yesterday. Four tired kids. They give us non connecting rooms on different floors. I show them our email correspondence and they say: "yes we know but we can't do that anymore. No rooms available." Needless to say I was aggravated. After an hour the options they presented us were-- 2 connecting regular basic rooms or their original offer of one suite and one other room on a different floor. I know connecting rooms are not always confirmable and a request, but am I wrong here expecting our email correspondence (confirming connecting suite and room) and the extra $260 a night would assure us the set-up we expected??? The hotel never challenged the emails and my expectation. They only said, "sorry, don't have that."

I've opened a ticket with SPG.

Am I overreacting?

banzani

I would be very very unhappy. First, hope you manage to recover the holiday. Second, IMO the hotel should make an offer for a 'material' apology.

UA-NYC

Did you have a chance to speak with the GM of the property?

3Cforme

Yes, and yes. Re-read the first clause in your first sentence above. Connecting rooms aren't guaranteed. The open-ended 'What can the hotel do for me?' would be a good way to engage the GM.

pewpew

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BB10; Touch) AppleWebKit/537.35+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/10.3.1.2576 Mobile Safari/537.35+)

I agree with your second sentence ; however, the way the OP presents this complaint makes it sound as though the hotel did confirm connecting rooms in advance. If this confirmation was not qualified with a caveat, then I disagree with your first sentence as well.

FD1971

It is high season, it is Mexico, so I am not really surprised that they forgot to block the respective rooms.

5k, maybe 10k, maybe a bottle of bubbly and then the case should be closed.

Stuff happens, again it is Mexico in high season.

JBauer

Yeah. I do have emails confirming connecting rooms. Because it wouldn't be a two room suite without it. But they didn't much care. I can assure you SPG sure cared when I called them. They were not happy at this hotels behavior.

RCyyz

I don't think so. You were Plat when you made the booking (probably Plat 50 or 75). You had the Plat concierge put you in touch with the hotel, you made the appropriate inquiries via email. What more could you have done?

I agree it's Mexico in high season, but again, what else could have been done prior to check in?

I think this is a fail on behalf of Westin Puerta Vallarta. The GM should make amends as soon as possible.

Happydayy

I have no sympathy for excuses like "This is Mexico" or "high season"...that's why you confirmed it in advance...I would insist on getting what was agreed ASAP and on getting a full refund for any day you did not get what you booked.

Soccerdad1995

I'm thinking about the typical hotel suite set-up and am trying to figure out why a hotel would ever fill a room that connects to any suite except as a last resort when all other rooms have been taken.

This hotel must be very, very, busy for this to happen. Even if this is the case, I would hope that a good GM would have their FDC check to make sure that no one has requested a "2 bedroom suite" before they take the unusual action of filling a room that connects to an unassigned suite.

Sounds like this was a major screw up on the part of the hotel. At a minimum, they should have tried to entice the occupants of the connecting room to move to the one that the OP was offered. This enticement could have included a resort credit or the like for the impacted guests.

FD1971

Two things, paying cash instead of using points (sad but probably a reason as well) and calling two more times in advance to double-check that they really take care of it.

Let's face it, for the hotel he is just a guest who booked rooms on points and paid a relatively low amount of money (considering the season) for premium inventory.

The other possible solution, they simply forgot to block the rooms, they are booked pretty solid, so there are limited options until Sunday, when occupancy should decrease...

S*** happens, probably more often in Mexico compared to Frankfurt, although the Sheraton FRA messed up my meeting room requests more than once.

ski

Yes, Bait and Switch, Would ask for and expect the $260 back a night.

1mileman

I have to agree about this being a bait and switch or something like that. This is exactly why hotels can't and should not guarantee connecting rooms until check in time. Too many things can go wrong. Whoever emailed you to confirm set the hotel up for failure and created a disappointment for you. I hope things work out somehow for the OP.

KosherKimchee

Did the OP really fly his family from FRA to PVR and stay at the Westin? My condolences. Many better options with much less BIS time. I took my wife there for one night ten years ago (en route to El Careyes, which was then with SPG) and she still hasn't forgiven me (and it's only a 2+ hour flight from LAX). What they did to him is just salt in the wound.

wolvie007

Have to side with the OP here. I frequently vacation with wife and four kids and make relationships with my ambassador and hotel GMs for exactly this purpose. During low seasons, GMs are usually happy to block connecting rooms in advance at no charge. For high season, a request for additional payment ($50-$100/night) to guarantee connecting rooms in advance is sometimes requested. If I take hotel up on the offer, I expect this contract will be honoured regardless of occupancy. This is why I'm paying a premium.