The Compensation Clinic visits Downtown Los Angeles this week following a stay at the Indigo L.A. next to LA Live / Staples Center for which I redeemed points through my IHG account.
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This was my first visit at this property as a registered guest although I’ve been walking by many times in the past. For some reason hotel rates in Downtown Los Angeles have soared this summer, it’s pretty much impossible to find anything below $200/night so using 30,000 IHG points would be good value here.
I had a simple one night, midweek stay at this property and was positively surprised by the design aspects of this INDIGO after having visited many of them recently but that was the only positive experience.
Unfortunately this property has many service and maintenance issues which include no bell staff to help arriving guests. Even opening the door is a challenge especially when carrying three suitcases and no staff is available to help.
The air condition unit was as loud as a car engine. I notified the front desk twice, nobody cared. Mentioned it next day at check-out and again nobody cared. My request for a manager to contact me back was ignored (at least by the person who was supposed to be in touch).
I slept less than 2 hours that night due to the noise, a complete waste of my 30,000 points spent and unacceptable customer service.
After a week without a response from the hotel and with the Amenity Points still missing as well I opened a case with the Ambassador Service. This was their reply:
Thank you for contacting us about your experience at the Hotel Indigo Los Angeles Downtown.
I am sorry to learn of your disappointment with the service and noise coming from the air conditioner. I know this is not the experience that you come to expect from us and I am truly sorry we had let you down. I understand you tried to work with management before contacting IHG, and I am sorry they did not contact you back.
I have discussed the situation with hotel management, who responded with genuine concern for the impact this had on your stay. I know they appreciate you sharing your experience and I am confident they will take steps so this doesn’t happen again.
We appreciate you as our Spire Ambassador and want your experiences with us to always be rewarding. That didn’t happen this time, and we’d like to try to make things right. To that end, I have issued 15,000 points to your IHG Rewards Club account. You should see this reflected on your account within 7-10 business days.
The points credit followed about a week later and the amenity points have been added as well:
The Indigo is a nice hotel but some things didn’t add up, for example that they said Indigo properties don’t have bellmen. I have stayed at several Indigo’s now and they all had bell staff. Maybe it’s something optional for this brand?
I also can’t imagine that I’m the only one who ever complained about this noisy air condition unit. Why is that not fixed?
Conclusion
The Ambassador Service added the missing Amenity Points (600) as well as 15,000 points compensation for the one night stay at Indigo. It’s an adequate compensation although not great but I wasn’t in the mood to argue any further about this.
IHG Rewards Club provides good value at the moment IF you can find properties that are priced comparatively low when put next to the revenue rates. Overall there are mixed reviews of IHG’s new dynamic pricing model and honestly I was more of a fan when they had fixed rates.
