travelista

Has anyone experienced a hotel that has not honored your Ambassadors request?

This past weekend, my husband and I were celebrating his birthday with a weekend stay in Chicago. I booked the reservation months in advance, and connected with my Ambassador to advise her that we were celebrating a special occasion - my husband's birthday. She asked what kinds of food and drinks he likes... (to which my husband replied, "how about pistachios & rum?".) He really doesn't like any extra attention drawn to him, but just thought the gesture would be nice.

Time goes on, and the rate changes to about $30less/night. I cancel and re-book. And also advise my Ambassador, as she said that yes - the amenity is connected w my reservation, not necessarily to my name.

We check in around noon. Did not use SNA's (as the SNA offering of Jr Suite was only 100sf more & this property has several larger rooms) - and the front desk very generously still upgraded us to an Executive Suite. As per usual, the suite wasn't ready so they asked my # to call when ready. (Like most business travelers, we were looking forward to getting some calls in and just relaxing a bit.) But okay, we'll gladly wait for the suite.

We arrive back later, and the suite was ready... around 2:15pm. (I thought perhaps the birthday amenity may be in the room.) Nothing.

Nothing delivered that night.

Morning of Day 2 I asked the front desk if they received the request, they said - "yup, we see it - pistachios, rum, and a small notecard greeting." And then nothing.

I'm just kinda bummed because the Ambassador amenities seem to be just for special occasions, so I was looking forward to my husband's surprise.

Oh well. The suite was nice...

Hotel: The Gwen, Luxury Collection (Chicago)

KENNECTED

Discussion: Personal Ambassador for Platinum members with 100 nights
SPG Ambassador worth it?
How has your Ambassador experience been?

travelista

But I like my Ambassador. She works hard for me, is always super helpful on the phone & email, and made the effort to have a birthday amenity for my husband. It was the hotel who didn't follow through on their part.

sfozrhfco

This is annoying. If the hotel could not complete the request, they should have told the Ambassador as such or suggested an alternative. Why make the service failure the thing that sticks out in a person's mind when the stay was otherwise very good?

KosherKimchee

My ambassador made a very simple request for me (small amount of milk to be in room on arrival) at the St Regis Singapore. They had the audacity to first ask that I agree to charge (nevermind the fact the butler brings it free with coffee) and then agreed to provide.

So after 20+ hours flying, all I needed to put my son down to sleep was a warm shower and his glass of milk. Nope, milk not there. My ambassador (who is wonderful) was pissed that they ignored her well documented and very simple request and wrote up the hotel (esp after I had "warned" her that the St Regis in Singapore had disappointed me with the crap soft product many times in the past).

horizontal

This is embarrassingly bad service. Did they charge you for it in the end?

Canada101

Ambassador amenities are really hit or miss and totally property dependent.

At a recent stay at the W Fort Lauderdale, I only learned after the fact that my Ambassador had actually requested an amenity because got absolutely nothing during my stay. The entire stay was a disaster from start to finish and the property's associates could care less (the management weren't much better) about Ambassador status.

On the other hand, on a recent stay at the Sheraton Omaha, my Ambassador informed the property that I would be earning my LTP status on that particular stay and the property went out of their way with balloons and a celebratory cake.

I would say that from my experience, sadly properties like the St Regis or the W do a shockingly poor job of fulfilling Ambassador requests.

KosherKimchee

No. If they did, I would have gone ballastic. Only reason I even bothered with the request in the first place is that the St Regis Singapore couldnt figure out how to bring me a glass of milk during a prior year's stay (literally came to my room, took glass from minibar, disappeared for 45 minutes and then came back with two JUGS of milk, one warm and one cold, bc they had no idea what to do)

CPRich

You seem to be assuming that meeting this request was impossible, and they knew this when the request was received.

I suspect it's more of a "Oh, I thought xxx was going to do that".

Did you respond and tell them it wasn't received?

Canada101

I would think that most of the time, these amenities aren't things the Ambassador guest even knows about.

In my case, the trip to the W Fort Lauderdale was quite a special one and I worked on every aspect of it (except the amenity, of course) with my Ambassador who confirmed every detail with me about 48 hours before check-in.

In the end, the stay was an absolute disaster and all the items I worked on with my Ambassador prior to the stay from bedding type to room type (even though the property acknowledged them in writing and I had emails to prove it) disappeared into thin air and the associates I dealt with were simply rude. And I did not request and was not expecting an upgrade or any special treatment -- just that the room type I booked and the bedding type on my reservation be honored.

It was only after I checked out and spoke to my Ambassador about how poorly things went that she asked if my family and I "at least" enjoyed the amenity she arranged. That's when I told her we didn't receive anything and that I had no idea what she was talking about. I personally don't really care one way or the other about amenities. When I get them, I'm always pleasantly surprised and grateful. But this particular trip was a special one and we were treated by the W Fort Lauderdale astonishingly poorly. The fact that the W Fort Lauderdale failed to deliver a simple amenity was the cherry on top of the sundae.

travelista

When nothing was delivered after I confirmed with them that the request was active, I gave up.

I strangely had another item that was off with this stay. I had commented on one of the hotel's Instagram photos, and we engaged in a conversation on the post. The last comment from the IG/Social Media person was: "That's wonderful! Thank you for celebrating with us. Would you mind sending us a DM w your reservation name & email address? We want to make sure your stay is nothing less than amazing this wknd."

So I replied that same day, Friday, around 4:30pm. (This is night 1 of our wknd stay.) And no response. All weekend long.

So basically two misses for me.

I emailed the hotel GM and another Director of Rooms regarding my experience yesterday. (Haven't heard back yet.)

And to top it off, the Cubs lost this weekend.

mahasamatman

Though you keep on booking, so what's their incentive to change?

UKTraveller4Fun

I would probably of contacted my Ambassador rather than the hotel on this occasion as it was them who arranged it and they could 'discuss / argue' with the hotel about if it would happen.

It is a major fail of the program however that hotels are essentially not accountable to the Ambassador program and the Ambassadors and thus Ambassador guests are at the goodwill of the hotel. SPG advertises and sells the program as one thing but in reality the Ambassadors can be in difficult positions if a hotel simply decides it cannot be bothered. I actually hope when the programs combine they come up with a new level with higher targets but then give the program some teeth to make hotels toe the line more!

Dr. HFH

What did your Ambassador say when you related the series of [non]-events?

controller1

I agree the program is not living up to the marketing hype from Starwood. But until Starwood, not the individual hotels, starts paying for fulfilling the requests of the Ambassadors the hotels are not going to be "accountable to the Ambassador program".