How does Accor treat you as an Elite guest?

[jase05]

Property: Raffles Doha
Status: Accor Plus Diamond
Room booked: Crescent Suite
Room upgraded/type: Yes, Gulf Signature Suite
Rate: Advance Saver B&B $1003p/n
Free internet: Yes
Free Breakfast: No, need to get B&B rate
Early check in/late out: Not required
Welcome drink: Yes, 4 drinks vouchers for beer, wine, spirits or coughtails at any of the hotel restaurants or bars
Welcome gift: Plate of dates and Chocolates, bottle of Laurent-Perrier Champagne. Hand written note delivered to room by GM.

2 nights at one of our favourite properties and as repeat Diamond customers the staff absolutely fawned over us with some of them remembering us from our visit earlier this year. All rooms at the hotel are suites and we had booked a Crescent suite but received an upgrade to the magnificent Gulf Signature suite which is a fair bit bigger and offers views over the Gulf with a private balcony. Room itself is great and has everything we needed including 2 toilets plus a bar that comes with free unlimited soft drink, juices and water. Nice and spacious with great air conditioning that is easily adjustable and numerous TV’s located around the rooms. Welcome gift consisted of a plate of hand made chocolates accompanied by dates plus a bottle of Laurent-Perrier champagne. About 40 minutes after arriving the GM rang our doorbell and gave us a hand written letter and thanked us for our repeat custom and asked if we would like a guided tour of facilities that weren’t open on our last stay due to Ramadan. We accepted the offer and had a good chat along the way as he took us everywhere including the restaurants and kitchens to personally greet the staff (amazingly the staff all remember your names throughout the stay)
We used both of the hotel pools and had stints at the various bars but didn’t have dinner at any of the restaurants as we went into town with one of the QR Flight attendants the first night and then the Souk on the second night. Breakfast is in one of the main restaurants and consists of a decent enough buffet with various Arabic dishes plus fruit, pastries etc and then you also can pick anything and everything from the menu unlimited so you can easily have 5 or 6 different dishes and the staff will keep bringing out more and more for you to taste even if you don’t order it. The staff are simply superb there and go out of their way to make you feel at home. They are very proud of their hotel and were intrigued as to why have flown half way around the world to stay with them again. We will definitely be back next year and hopefully more than once. When checking out the Duty Manager mentioned that the GM has said that when we come back next time he will organise for the hotels Bentley to pick us up from the airport complimentary as a thank you so I’ll definitely take him up on the offer.
As a bonus we were only a couple hundred status points short of retaining Diamond so the stay easily pushed us over and with the rest of this trip plus future bookings this year we should easily get another stack of SNU’s

 

[jase05]

Property: Fairmont Ajman
Status: Accor Plus Diamond
Room booked: Deluxe Sea view King
Room upgraded/type: Yes, Junior Suite
Rate: Flex B&B $320p/n
Free internet: Yes
Free Breakfast: Included in rate
Early check in/late out: Not required
Welcome drink: Yes, 4 drinks vouchers for beer, wine, spirits or coughtails at any of the hotel restaurants or bars
Welcome gift: Plate of dates and Chocolates and treats, Rose petals in room.

Another excellent stay here, this time 4 nights. Great to see a lot of familiar faces from last visit and staff here are all great. Received an upgrade to a Corner Junior Suite which is worth in excess of $600p/n and when we got up to the room we had found that staff had left us a welcome note in rose petals to go with our chocolates and treats. Room was great and had a nice sized living area, 2 toilets and 2 balconies. The main balcony was spacious and spent a couple of hours each day out there, there was a smaller balcony located off the bedroom which also had good views. The pool and swim up bar are relaxing and plenty of lounges around both the pool and on the beach to relax with a drink. The property has its own private beach and the sand is clean and soft whilst the ocean itself was as warm as a bath and calm in the morning but a few small waves in the arvo when the sea breeze kicks in. Great beach for swimming and spent a fair bit of time in there. Ajman itself hasn’t got a lot to offer in the immediate area around the hotel but we did go for walk each morning just to check things out for interest sake. As a result the hotel has a high percentage of guests who purchase food and beverage packages. The hotel has 3 restaurants, the main restaurant which serves breakfast, lunch and dinner plus a Italian restaurant and a Turkish restaurant. The pool bar also does good pizzas, burgers and snacks. There are various packages available and we chose the upgrade to all inclusive. As we had breakfast already in our room rate the price was cheaper to upgrade to all inclusive but cost us approximately $150pp per day. It does sound a bit pricey but considering most alcoholic drinks are in the region of $15-20 each you can see why it’s so popular. The all inclusive gives you the 3 main meals in the restaurant which is a buffet but the food is pretty good and they have different theme nights and there are several areas set up for different food regions. House wine, beer, spirits, tea, coffee and soft drinks are included from 11am to 11pm at all bars and restaurants If you don’t want the buffet dinner every meal you can eat at the other restaurants and they give you a small credit of around $20pp per meal service. We ate at the Italian restaurant one night and the Turkish restaurant one night and I think the bill was about $90 at each one so only $50 out of pocket which was fine as with the alcohol we had with our meals plus at the pool bar we were well infront. The resort is packed with Russians and I reckon we were one of about half a dozen non Russian couples in the resort but most were well behaved and polite even though I don’t think they have any concept of how a buffet works. Most normal people would just go up multiple times but the Russians all pile their plates so high they can’t see over it and then smuggle food out in their bags
We have previously t flown into DXB and taken a taxi to the resort which takes about 1hr but this time we flew into SHJ which was only about 30 minutes by taxi and then we flew out of DXB instead. Another really good stay and well treated there once again. Will definitely be back and we don’t mind just heading to the ME from Australia for a week or so to relax so no doubt will get over there again soon.

 

[MELso]

Property: Hanoi Metropole (Sofitel Legend)
Status: newly minted Accor Plus Gold
Room booked: Luxury room in the Heritage Wing with queen bed
Room 'upgraded'/type: Yes - Grand Premium Room in the Opera Wing (without, no, with, no actually without club lounge access); Grand Luxury Room in the Heritage Wing (definitely no club lounge access)
Rate: Red hot rooms plus breakfast $US324 plus $US36 per night plus VAT (so about $A600 per night)
Free internet: Yes
Free breakfast: No
Early check in/late out: Not required
Welcome drink: Yes, choice of select drinks at the bar. I went for a Charlie Chaplin martini on my third night.
Welcome gift: Fruit, ganaches, candied fruit

My three night stay here was quite a saga.

At the urging of my dad who'd stayed at the Metropole many years ago, I cancelled a booking I had for the Movenpick Hanoi and splurged on the Metropole.

Checked into the Metropole and was informed I was upgraded to a Grand Premium Room, but was also told I wasn't going to be given club lounge access (my first upgrade thanks to status). No biggie as I hadn't paid for lounge access and wasn't expecting it. I was quickly disappointed when I realised the 'upgraded' room I'd been assigned was in the old wing rather than the newly refurbished, much storied Heritage wing that I'd paid a premium for. I was also confused why my room didn't come with club floor access given this was usual for the type of room I was in, so went to query this at the club lounge itself (as I thought it a reasonable trade-off for not being in the Heritage wing if I got lounge access, and the noisy air con), vowing to ask to be moved to the Heritage wing if not.

I was informed my room did have club lounge access so I settled into for a splendid high tea followed by coughtails, champagne and canapes over about four hours. A splendid time was had, before I retreated to my room.

I went to the main buffet for a (splendid, if pricy) breakfast each morning (which featured both freshly made pho and Vietnamese iced coffee; yum!).

The problems started the next night when I went to have a cleansing ale or two before dinner in the lounge. I had a couple of beers and on the way out, was asked for my room number and was told I didn't have club access asked to sign for $25 worth of beer (being two bottles of Ha Noi beer). At this point, I stated 'huh? your colleague told me I had access yesterday!'

After grizzling to the lounge manager further about this, I eventually signed the chit, but indicated I would be complaining the next day (given that both the inconsistency about lounge access)

The hotel's majordomo approached me at dinner that night (I went to Le Beaulieu which was very nice as you'd expect for ~$A290 for four courses although you only get a 10% discount with Accor Plus). He agreed to wipe the charge for the beer and to move me to the Heritage Wing. One exchange: 'Why didn't you raise this at check-in?' 'Well, because while not happy with the Opera Wing, I would have been happy with club lounge access like I thought I had as a compromise.'

Anyway, the room I ended up in, the Grand Deluxe, was very nice indeed (with whisper quiet air con I might add), and I'm pleased I ended up here.

The following night, I popped across the street to the MGallery Hotel d l'Opera for dinner (as I was zonked but couldn't face the astronomical prices for meals in the Metropole). They had 2 for 1 drinks at the bar (sadly only Carlsberg on tap rather than anything local) and gave the full 25% Accor Plus discount on my plate of Bun Cha Ha Noi. Came to about $32 all up for two beers, a main and a dessert. Far more reasonable.

Will I stay here again? No probably not, as the Movenpick will probably be almost as nice for one-third the price for a club room (the need for a club room will be rendered moot by looming platinum status).

 

[aaronm]

A bit of an odd one tonight, no welcome drink vouchers showing in the app. Front desk agreed I should be eligible because gold but couldn’t do anything apart from suggest I’d somehow booked a rate that didn’t entitle me to the benefit? It’s a “members app offer” rate and the voucher worked at this same hotel last week… Ibis Melbourne in case anyone has had similar.