Curtis K.
Yelp
awful experience - beware, and I am a platinum elite so i've been to a bunch of starwood properties.
arriving fresh from our 14 hour flight, we were "greeted" by the guy at the VIP desk who asked to see my proof of corporate affiliation for my corporate rate. I was traveling with family and didn't bring any business cards with me, however I pulled up my picture on the corporate website and showed him along with the snippet indicating we were a subsidiary of the corporate.
He told me 1) our corporate rate would only apply to one of our two top
s, not the room for our kids and 2) he could only accept our corporate rate if I produced a business card AND it did not cover any subsidiaries.
Exasperated I didn't try to argue and asked how much the rate would increase to. My corporate negotiated rate booked perhaps six months ago was $250 per room. The new stepped up rate increased to an unfathomable $900 per room nightly.
It was 6pm and we were tired from the flight so I could neither argue nor try to orchestrate an alternative hotel for the night. I decided I would shorten our 7 night stay to just tonight and find a new home tomorrow for the remaining days.
I checked out the following day and just decided to stiff upper lip the paying of $2000 for a place very far from the four seasons experience. Worse still, upon checking out, the front desk prepared our bill for a "prepaid 7 nights for the two rooms" so I was looking at a bill for $14,000. I kept my cool and just kind of laughed out loud and assured them that the rooms were not prepaid and that we had agreed the prior day I would be checking out today, and I reminded them that I even requested a late check out. They quickly realized their mistake and just charged me the $2000 usurious dollars for a night's stay.
I thought of all the homeless people i could have fed with this. I do not mind spending money but I need value. This was so entirely out of whack not only with the high end hotel experience but also, importantly, other prices in tokyo, for food, events, taxis, etc