Land-of-Miles

I had a complaint about a property which I made to corporate customer care. This complaint was relayed to the property in question and I received a response which I thought was unacceptable and inaccurate.

I am now being told by corporate customer care that they have closed the file and the agent who has been handling the issue flatly said that they thought the response and offer made by the property was acceptable.

What annoys me most is that the core of the issue concerns the property description on SPG.com. This turned out to be quite inaccurate with no "special conditions" being declared to highlight the shortfall. A week after my complaint the error persists.

I have gone from being mildly annoyed by a gap between the promised facilities and the reality, to being furious at how this has been handled by Starwood. The responses I have received so far categorically state that the SPG.com description is entirely down to the property and if there are any issues it is down to the property to resolve.

My takeaway from this is that I can have very little confidence in anything which is ever written on SPG.com if Starwood will never stand behind the descriptions which have appeared on its own booking system. How can I ever have confidence again making a booking for a property that I have never visited, if Starwood feels it has no responsibility for the descriptions of its own properties?

I am really trying to see this in the context of many great experiences with Starwood but I am struggling to do so right now.

Is anyone aware of any escalation point beyond customer care? Whilst the original complaint was about compensation for the misdescription, the broader point for me now is how issues such as this would be resolved in the future. I really just want to feel confident when making new bookings and my confidence in the Starwood brand has taken quite a severe knock.

Flying Lawyer

Just ask the agent by email to escalate the matter to a supervisor.

abk

maybe you should ask starwood lurker for some private advice based on your facts and see what he says.

wharvey

Would you be willing to share with us the discrepency? And hotel?

Thanks,

Land-of-Miles

Post#27 on this thread http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...=825866&page=2

BlissWorld

What did the property tell you after you complained?

rockdocs

Starwood absolutely does not care, I escalated my situation to the top, actually to Fritz's office.
I had a room confirmed, they cancelled it, offered to move me 30 miles away to another Chain, with no compensation.
I wrote several letters and never an acceptable answer.

As a result, with 268 employees traveling, at a minimum 50 nights per year, they have lost a lot of revenue

Please PM me on your situation.

ldsant

So you received compensation and just aren't pleased with it? What more exactly are you looking for?

Moomba

What all of us should be looking for - accurate information about properties and rooms on SPG.com

I have instances where the room description stated Heavenly Bed but not all rooms had them.

I have also stayed in a hotel that states walk in shower on the room description but not all rooms have it.

If SPG wants our loyalty they need to take some responsibility for the information that is written about the hotels on their website that is NOT true.

KENNECTED

I can't be 100% sure, but I think William stated that each hotel updates their page or sends Starwood the information to update.

I wonder what the QA is for verifying the accuracy of information?

Moomba

That is my understanding as well. I wouldn't expect that SPG could vet all the information provided by the hotels as that would be a costly exercise.

However when SPG are informed of these inaccuracies they should put pressure on the hotels in question to amend the information as appropriate. Which is, I believe, the crux of LoM's current beef with SPG customer services although I will let him confirm or deny this.

Land-of-Miles

My particular point here is that ths property was crawling with Starwood staff for the opening including the EMEA Vice President. It is absolutely inconceivable that they did not know of the shortcomings in the product, they just did not care enough to fix things. Still one week after my complaint they haven't fixed the site which speaks volumes to me.

No I was not happy with the offer made, which amounted to less than one nights accomodation at this particular property when in any event when all of the other corrections due to my account are made will show over 100k SPG Points. I really don't want SPG points I want some practical acknowledgement that effectively this property lied to me, yet all I get from Starwood HQ is "they have made you an offer etc.". In any other situation I would have walked from the hotel but since I walked from another Starwood property just before I arrived there, my appetite for a further move was somewhat diminished, in what was after all supposed to be a relaxing time.

I am annoyed at the hotel but absolutely incandescent at the line taken by Starwood.

CIT85

I read the extensive list of items advertised by GM on the SPG website that were not available during the grand opening. I can't say that I'm surprised given all the problems that can arise and often inital timing has to be delayed. That's why I'm NEVER interested in staying at a hotel during the opening week. I like to stay at a new hotel after all the initial issues are resolved.

I don't know what the grand opening rates were, but I would be upset when a lot of the advertised activities were unavailable. I believe the GM at least owe you explanations why these items were not available, such as s**t happens when working against a deadline, and offer a discount on the room rate because the hotel's promises were not delivered, kind of like the old Sheraton Promise.

I like good wine, but I also look at value. Any wine that's marked up >500% is outrageous, even 300% for an expensive wine is too high.