Status: Gold
Property: Conrad Singapore
Date: 17-20 Jan 2014 (3 nights)
Rate: 60000 HH points per night
Booked: King Classic Room
Received: King Business Room
At checkin I was advised of my upgrade to 'Business' Room which involved being able to breakfast by the pool, and $20 laundry allowance per day, and was offered late checkout. I did say I'd be happy to trade all of that for lounge access but "sorry not possible lah" was the reply, though the lady then informed me I was able to purchase lounge access (SGD50 + taxes per day). I asked if could think about it and she said yes. I decided at Singapore drink prices I could make that a good deal and went back to reception a few hours later and asked a different lady about buying the lounge access and she went tap tap tap on the keyboard and cheerily advised I didn't need to and I already had lounge access. I asked her to double check which she did, answer still the same - yes!
I was not convinced and headed up to floor 31 and approached the man at the EL (I don't like uncertainty of that sort) and asked him to check. He invited me to go and have a drink while he contacted reception to check. About 15 minutes later he came in and said he could not contact reception (or the right person there), and the message I got from him (wasn't all that clear) was that I should not have it, but because of the mucking around they were giving it to me. Yay, I'll take that. The interesting bit is that later another guest (I was at FT SIN DO) said that because my card had got me to floor 31 in the first place, it must have been programmed for lounge access. I had thought once you swiped the card you could select any floor - I could certainly select any other floor.
Anyway, whatever the reason (my original suspicion was that the second lady I spoke to at checkin saw 'business' room and upgraded it to exec without realising a one-level upgrade had already been applied to take it to Biz - but that is just speculation).
That drama (albeit 'good' drama in the end) aside the stay was great as always. I got Conrad Bear and the duck, fruit and chocolates delivered to my room, and the EL staff (and food/bev) were excellent as always. Interestingly on the Sunday there were around 8 of us in the EL for an extended period of time and a staff member came around and took our room numbers - I think one o two of us should not have been there but they thought quick enough on their feet to seemingly avoid any issues.
Actually, one beef (and I may whinge about it to the Hotel if I can be bothered). Toss-up on Friday (visiting friends) between cab and MRT plus 2km walk, Decided I didn't want to turn up 'icky' after a long walk so opted for cab. Well, a combination of Friday night and Hindu Thaipusam festival had me waiting in the taxi queue for 45 minutes - would have taken the other option had I known, and traffic was very bad too due to Thaipusam blocking off much of Little India.
My beef comes with the fact that just before a cab would turn up, someone would walk out the door with suitcases and the queue manager would shout 'Airport, Airport' and divert the cab to them, despite many of us having waited in the queue a long time. It is a hotel policy and IMHO a bad one. Doesn't matter where you are going, airport or pub or wherever, you are responsible for getting yourself there in a timely fashion. Oh, and people at the end of the queue were flagging and boarding the incoming cabs while the queue manger's attention was distracted.