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So following the housekeeping incident, my stay at the Caledonian in Edinburgh failed to get much better.
Was working in the room on the second morning and suddenly the air was filled with the sound of drilling, sawing and hammering. Evidently they were refurbing the room next to mine. I was planning to spend most of the day working in my room, before attending a function that night.
So I called down to ask what time it would be finished, to then be told it would be ongoing until after I had checked out. After some back and forth they agreed to move my room, and had housekeeping put a rush notice on cleaning it. 6 hours later – at 4pm – I was finally told my new room was ready.
What strikes me as odd is that the original room I had was the one the app was trying to allocate me. I didn’t select it as I’d stayed in that very same room the last time – it had a view of the castle but was very small. But whoever was doing the rooming clearly thought it was a good idea to put me in there for 3 nights even though construction was taking place next door. As a return visitor. On a VIP rate. And as a HH Gold. And not mention it at check in just incase I happened to be out all day I guess.
So do some hotels actually rail against these deals we are buying into? Wouldn’t surprise me as the benefits package probably gets quite corrosive on margins, especially when combined with a 3-4-2 deal, but in that case they need to out out of selling these deals, not shaft the customer.
Needless to say, I won’t be rushing back.
Maybe it’s a Hilton thing. I recently made a booking via Emyr; I haven’t had any issues adding these to my IHG and Bonvoy accounts but couldn’t find anywhere on the Hilton website to do it. Tried via chat and after half an hour of going round in circles being told that my email address didn’t match that on the booking (well duh, that’s because I didn’t book it), was told I needed to call or email to get this done. So I’m half expecting to arrive in Las Vegas and be thrown out by some heavies because I didn’t book direct lol. But I do recall almost being verbally abused the last time I turned up at a Hilton hotel on a 3rd party booking in the US!
*Homewood Suites, Alexandria, Virginia, “Breakfast is a benefit of booking direct, ma’am”. “Er … everyone gets breakfast here.”
- This reply was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
4 bookings at Waldorf Astoria palm Dubai, impresario rate (Emyr), diamond member.
2 bookings resulted in the worst possible room allocation in the booked class – farthest possible walk from the lifts looking at the water treatment plant (1 Pearl club suite, 1 club king overlooking the main road). You can’t choose a room in the app at that property, so you get what you get, unless you come back down to reception.
2 bookings had no welcome amenity. That doesn’t bother me.
The room rate was varied on 2 bookings from the the booking confirmation emails, which took repeated interaction, including by Emyr, to resolve.
Property didn’t understand the difference between Amex FHR and Impresario, inc demanding an Amex for payment (resolved after some discussion).
No 2x impresario points on 1 booking, still not resolved after 17 emails.
1 booking no showed the first night, resulting in a loss of a “night” for Hilton purposes. Still not resolved after 15 emails.
Given the only real benefit of booking impresario is points if you are diamond, I’m looking at third party OTA bookings as they are of course far cheaper, and some can still be fully flex.
- This reply was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
@The real Swiss Tony I think you hit the nail on the head; a lot of hotels hate these arrangements, according to a friend who is a hotel GM and another who is at the top of a hotel owning/operating company that operates many brands. They don’t like these travel agency benefits because this was really a US thing where agents or Amex etc. dominate the market, so the head offices cut deals, but now those agents are pushing into Europe. Equally, a lot of hotel owners really hate giving out benefits (for nothing as they see it) to loyalty programme guests who aren’t loyal to their hotels. FSHR is pushing back by capping commissions. Some hotels will honour these programmes well, others grudgingly at the minimum which is why they have all this rate stratification so they can say they upgraded you when when they put you in the room by the kitchen vents instead of overlooking the bins. There is another subtext which is that quite a few owners felt they got bullied by the chains during covid and they are reasserting themselves.
If a hotel has to give you a couple of free breakfasts, an upgrade, $100 F&B credit and pay away 15-20% commission, they don’t like it. That’s why I almost always book direct and end up with a better deal, especially things like proper guaranteed upgrades (and no dodgy ones) that cost them nothing.
- This reply was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
Thanks for the feedback – taking this all on board.
Just to add, I was being offered one other room in the app, looked to be the same size, one floor down (and quite probably immediately below where the work was taking place).
Always figured these were treated like regular bookings because they were paid at the property.
Didn’t someone have a slogan “for the best deal book direct”? Perhaps it should be “so we don’t treat you like $h1t, book direct”
I’ve never had any issues with bookings via Emyr at ICs or Kimptons – quite the opposite, whether it’s purely Emyr, purely direct or a mixture of both. Always had lovely upgrades and great service.
I’ve had only decent to spectacular upgrades at Marriott properties when booking via Emyr, including STARS and Luminous rates. I haven’t booked a Hilton property via him yet. Sounds to me like the hotel you’re staying at has a couple of bad apples or was being thoughtless for whatever reason.
My last stay at the Caledonian had so many issues (and the staff members weren’t helpful) that we won’t return there. It wasn’t a luxury experience at all. And it felt like they pampered US guests and the rest of us didn’t matter as much! We had to spend a fair amount of time at the front desk during our stay and noticed a number of issues/complaints from European guests but the hotel team were falling over themselves to help US guests. Perhaps they like additional tips from US guests so favour them?
We were on a Virtuoso rate at the time though so maybe that was a factor I hadn’t considered for the poor stay.
Interesting. I must admit that there were some genuine touches of great service – like the waitress at breakfast remembering something from my order the day before, the staff in the bar and the bell hop who helped me move room – but front desk do seem to have been briefed to apologise but stand fast. I should have just checked out after the housekeeping incident.
Oh dear, certainly isn’t good. We’ve booked the WA Rome Cavalieri through Emyr and got it at 342 nights. What we are paying is a considerable amount less than the current rates, and we’ll get the usual benefits of breakfast, f&b etc. The upgrade should give us a Rome View. We’ll see!
Alittle OTT here but sort of related. I remember last year we booked mandarin oriental through Emyr for 2 nights for our “staycation honeymoon”. Looking at Instagram, Emyr seems to have good relation with management so maybe I just expected too much. The expectation probably also came from the email when he said we should get a good upgrade. We certainly didn’t get a good upgrade in my eyes and we were on the road, and the bed squeaked.
It wasn’t as if it was cheap either, but people at the time said I should have sent this as Feedback to Emyr but in all fairness they allowed me to use all the Mo benefits as I was already a MO member (from my one stay before in Singapore at an MO) and I did get one official room upgrade I think.- This reply was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
Alittle OTT here but sort of related. I remember last year we booked mandarin oriental through Emyr for 2 nights for our “staycation honeymoon”. Looking at Instagram, Emyr seems to have good relation with management so maybe I just expected too much. The expectation probably also came from the email when he said we should get a good upgrade. We certainly didn’t get a good upgrade in my eyes and we were on the road, and the bed squeaked.
It wasn’t as if it was cheap either, but people at the time said I should have sent this as Feedback to Emyr but in all fairness they allowed me to use all the Mo benefits as I was already a MO member (from my one stay before in Singapore at an MO) and I did get one official room upgrade I think.I’d be fairly to very cheesed off if I were you, and per earlier posts on this thread, the hotels are paying away a lot of commission; some don’t like doing this and, as they see it, being bullied into providing extras like breakfast, F&B credits. Speak to the hotel directly to book and they will pull out more stops, give you a better rate and guarantee the upgrades in advance etc. Many seem sceptical, but in my experience it has worked wonders for 30+ years all over the world.
- This reply was modified 55 years, 4 months ago by .
I’d be fairly to very cheesed off if I were you, and per earlier posts on this thread, the hotels are paying away a lot of commission; some don’t like doing this and, as they see it, being bullied into providing extras like breakfast, F&B credits. Speak to the hotel directly to book and they will pull out more stops, give you a better rate and guarantee the upgrades in advance etc. Many seem sceptical, but in my experience it has worked wonders for 30+ years all over the world.
Counter argument is – if hotels were that good in recognising loyalty or rewarding direct booking customers, there would be no need for Virtuoso or FHR.
Another point to note is, hotels can make it easy to buy early checkin and late checkout for a small fee, like how they charge for breakfast, but that’s rarely the case.
Sure, booking direct avoids the worst room in the hotel, but customers don’t see the value-add from the hotel for the 20% saved on commissions.I’d be fairly to very cheesed off if I were you, and per earlier posts on this thread, the hotels are paying away a lot of commission; some don’t like doing this and, as they see it, being bullied into providing extras like breakfast, F&B credits. Speak to the hotel directly to book and they will pull out more stops, give you a better rate and guarantee the upgrades in advance etc. Many seem sceptical, but in my experience it has worked wonders for 30+ years all over the world.
Counter argument is – if hotels were that good in recognising loyalty or rewarding direct booking customers, there would be no need for Virtuoso or FHR.
Another point to note is, hotels can make it easy to buy early checkin and late checkout for a small fee, like how they charge for breakfast, but that’s rarely the case.
Sure, booking direct avoids the worst room in the hotel, but customers don’t see the value-add from the hotel for the 20% saved on commissions.In my experience and others whose judgement I trust, that just isn’t true either in respect of getting lower rates or better benefits. I also read quite carefully here how people report the loyalty benefits they receive, in case I’m missing out and while there are clearly some outsize upgrades and other benefits given, mostly it seems to be really very notional ‘upgrades’ that would be of a level that are of zero interest/value to me. We also repeatedly read of people being fobbed off by receptionists and refused upgrades although there is clear availability; those are their instructions.
I am still sceptical to both camps. I completely recognise that using HfP or flyertalk people are trying to decipher the world of upgrades and benefits. But I think it is a big mistake to think that there are universal rules in this. Getting these benefits depend on a lot of elements: financial incentive of the hotel, season, how busy the hotels are, loyalty etc that we all know. I think it is unreasonable to assume and expect that Impressario agents have that much power to overrule these elements. For independent hotels, I am all for the Emyr and like, but for the chains that I have status, I still book directly.
For independent hotels, I am all for the Emyr and like, but for the chains that I have status, I still book directly.
That makes sense.
I am still sceptical to both camps. I completely recognise that using HfP or flyertalk people are trying to decipher the world of upgrades and benefits. But I think it is a big mistake to think that there are universal rules in this. Getting these benefits depend on a lot of elements: financial incentive of the hotel, season, how busy the hotels are, loyalty etc that we all know. I think it is unreasonable to assume and expect that Impressario agents have that much power to overrule these elements. For independent hotels, I am all for the Emyr and like, but for the chains that I have status, I still book directly.
But to roll back to the original point, it appeared that in this case the hotel has deliberately gone out of its way to dump me into a room where it knew there was a fighting chance of complaints owing to the planned engineering work going on. It’s not so much about getting upgrades as the hotel being p1ssed off that they need to give away the Impressario benefits on a 3-4-2 rate and pay out whatever % of commission to the agent.
So I paid £800 for 3 nights. Let’s assume the com was 20% (sounds a bit high) but that’s £640 for the hotel, I could have taken 2 breakfasts each morning @£30 each (although that was also a benefit of my gold status), I also used a £75 bar credit which leaves the hotel with £385. Take off the VAT and the hotel is clearing just over £100 a night for the room whilst also swallowing the opportunity cost of an upgrade. My request for a 3pm check out was refused and the room wasn’t ready until an hour after official check in time. I looked a week before arrival and the hotel was charging around £400 a night.
I’ve only booked direct at high end paces (with the property, not central reservations) on a couple of occasions but must admit with the benefit of hindsight I have received sensible offers, one being they quoted the advance purchase rate even though I wanted the flexibility to cancel (Hong Kong 2019, things were getting a bit spicy) and the other where I needed a 2br suite without selling a kidney.
@The real Swiss Tony – you make a very good point that I forgot to make. When I mention booking directly, I did very much mean talking to the reservations people at the hotel, the only ones who have the power. The res team are often rather overlooked as they aren’t usually visible. I make a point of meeting them and a nice box of biscuits or chocolates never goes amiss.
Did you notice someone’s comments on another thread yesterday – I think re CP Warsaw where they advised club access had been removed by GM for Diamonds as they had free breakfast. Owners hate all this stuff!
Owners hate all this stuff
Then they should quit the chain. I don’t go to McDonalds and find the staff refusing to sell me just a basic hamburger no ‘meal’ because there’s no margin for them in it.
The Caley is not a luxury hotel. It’s a typical Hilton. Some of the rooms are in an absolute state with cheap furniture long past its prime. For the rates they charge for those you’d have to assess it as a dump. You need at least a Castle View Premier for things to get decent.
Breakfast is good and the restaurants, which are almost standalone businesses, are also good.
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