I booked my stay on American Express' travel site. The property is listed as as "The Hotel Collection" which offers benefits, such as, free room upgrade and a $100 credit for certain purchases including food & beverage.
Upon check in, while the room upgrade benefit was available, the employee told me the $100 credit converter to €88. Earlier that day, I had made several purchases on my Amex card. Those purchases appeared on their mobile app to $100 to approximately €95. When I contacted Amex's Twitter team, they referred me to https://www.onanda.com which converted $100 to appropriately €94.7 for that date. If international hotels can choose their own exchange rate, bad operators could reduce the $100 hotel credit to an unusable amount. For instance, the daily breakfast is €25. If I had stayed four nights and ate breakfast daily, my out-of-pocket cost could have been €12 rather than the expected €5.
The upgraded room itself seemed okay; two twin beds were merged into one. Although the shower area was separated with a partial divider; the water can drain to the bottom of the sink. The shower consists of a fixed shower head and a handheld one. There is also a handheld bidet by the toilet. For toiletries, individual bottles for conditioner and body lotion were provided and replaced daily, if used. Containers hung on the wall for shampoo and shower gel. I could have bought my own products at the supermarket across the street.
Although the lift is on a raised floor; there is a ramp so I did not have to carry my suitcases up the steps. Even though the room is on the third floor; the hotel does not have a second floor. Except for the two times I had my suitcases, I never once needed to use lift. It would have taken longer to wait for it than to climb up one floor.
On my final night, the hotel emailed the prospective bill. Because the stay was prepaid, I was surprised to see a charge for one night. Since I had international data roaming, I verified the prepayment on my credit card weeks prior. When I returned to the hotel after dinner, I verified the incorrect charge was still on the bill. I asked about the irregular charge. The employee stated their system had incorrectly categorized one of the nights as postpay rather than prepay. She said it would have been corrected, but I informed her that I had expected the hotel to have made the correction without my intervention. read more