Priceline Hotel: Help,San Diego Manchester Grand

[bbbb]

Has anyone stayed at the Hyatt Manchester Grand San Diego on a priceline stay?If so what kind of room were you given?One or Two beds?Old or new tower? Thank You

[BEAV]

We stayed there last September. We booked 3 rooms via Priceline (same transaction) but all checked in separately. We were the first to check in and were assigned the "old" tower. Our request for a king, non-smoking room was honored. Friends checking in later were assigned the newer tower. Go figure!

A friend of mine stayed there just about a month ago and had some problems. I posted his experience on a different thread here at BB, but here are the comments again for your info...

A friend of mine checked into the Hyatt Manchester in San Diego this past week (on a Priceline reservation). He is Platinum w/Hyatt. He asked for a high floor in the "new" tower. The desk employee immediately responded that "we don't put Priceline people in those rooms" and proceeded to assign him a room on the 8th floor of the "old" tower. The two towers are 33 and 40 stories, by the way. The employee further stated "I see by your Gold Passport profile you only book through Priceline." WOW! Some Hyatt employee was obviously having a "bad hair day"! Let me state at this point my friend is not the demanding type and knows how to conduct himself as a gentleman. He proceeded to his room, called the hotel's General Manager, and relayed the experience at the front desk. The GM apologized, reassigned him to a corner room on the 18th floor of the new tower, and promised to counsel the employee.

To be fair, I'm sure there are those times when all that's left are "Priceline rooms" to assign. Especially so in cases of late night check-ins at properties at, or very near capacity. In my friend's case, he checked in around 3:00pm on Friday afternoon. Although I have no idea how full the hotel was that night, it's reasonable to assume that the business crowd would be absent on a Friday night, especially on a holiday weekend.

It's a shame the Priceline "stigma" often rears it's ugly head. The Utell agreement clearly states that it's the hotel that determines the Priceline rate, not Priceline. If a 4 star big city hotel decides to load a $50 Priceline rate into the system, then the guest booking that rate should be treated no differently. Certainly not "branded" as a Priceline guest and assigned an inferior room when better are available.

The majority of my own Priceline stays have been good, if not great! But there's still a lot of hotel employees out there who could gain a lot in Customer Service if they had knowledge of Priceline's agreements with it's vendors. It's my guess a lot of them don't know key points such as the "Extend Valued Guest Treatment" clause.

[bbbb]

Beav,Thanks!

[Steph58]

I book probably 75% of my stays via PL, but for this property I used GP points. I had numerous problems with the front desk along with other problems. The worst of which I was assigned a room that shared a common wall with the bank of elevators. It took us awhile to figure out what the noise was--thunder, jets landing? This was in the older tower because I'm Diamond and that's where Regency Club is located. I know someone else who stayed via PL and when he arrived at 10:30 p.m. they said they'd cancelled him (they did eventually find him a room but with a lot of hassle). When you first enter the hotel, the lobby is so grand you have high expectations. It seems like this property may have customer service issues no matter what your method of payment. When you're only spending one night there, you sure don't want to spend a lot of time complaining about things. For a PL rate, I guess I could just shrug it off. But there's no way I'd stay and pay their regular rates. However, for the record, the majority of Hyatts treat you like royalty even on PL and award stays.

Interesting that the front desk clerk has access to info that says all your Hyatt stays are via PL . . .

[wcj1]

I stayed here in January. I had previously called Hyatt to add my Gold Passport number.

When I called 1-800-check-in, I requested a non-smoking king on a high floor in the tower. Also asked for a room on the end of the hallway, but the phone agent did not know which rooms were on the end. Got the other requests though and the room was fine.

So my suggestion would be to enter a GP number in the res, and use 1-800-check-in to request a room in the new tower. (The towers actually have names besides new and old, but I cannot remember what they are now.)

BillJ

[bbbb]

Thanks everyone, as I will be checking in late and will be calling tomorrow to find out the name of the new tower.What number do I call to add my passport number to the res?

[bbbb]

The tower names are harbor (old tower) and seaport (new tower)