opus17

I'm staying at the Chicago City Centre Hotel which was a Holiday Inn when I made the reservation last week (this is the hotel on Ohio Street). There is no trace of it being a Holiday Inn anymore (maybe the breakfast menu). It has disappeared from the ichotelsgroup web site -- I can click on my reservation, and it returns "unknown hotel".

the_commish3

Holiday Inn is in the process of purging 30,000 Holiday Inn rooms a year, a lot of HI properties have been in the system since the 70's,80's and the buildings in the 90's some of the owners did not reinvest into them. This as you can imagine hurts thier brand image, the company also wants only interrior corridor, bassically a building. They don't want exterrior corridor, which is your typical motel set up, where you can park outside, climb some stairs and go to your hotel room. The hotel you are talking about I think left the HI System early this week.

The hotel has to deidentify itself, meaning as you stated all the HI stuff has to be purged and to the naked eye it should apear as if this hotel was never affiliated with HI or IHG

opus17

The initial indications here is that they are trying to go upscale from the Holiday Inn (this is far from a typical motel setup).

the_commish3

Sorry I left that out, when the hotels license expires, the hotel and the Licensor (brand owner) also revist whether they want to be affiliated or not. The hotel can opt to become another flag or the Licensor can opt to not renew. They are bassically free agents, it could also be a temporay removal also if the hotel is undergoing renovations, etc in order to meet the expectations of the Licensor, so they shut down for a period of time or continue to operate as an Indy. Meet say CP guidelines and then come back into the system as a CP.

I wasn't familiar with the hotel but in most cases, the hotels being purged are hotels with quality issues or older properties.

Shareholder

Your use of the active tense ("I'm staying...") makes it confusing as to whether you are actually staying at this property now, or in the near future...though you booked it last week. So could you please clarify when your stay actually is?

If it is indeed in the near future, and the property has just left the HI group as you say, you can still request PC points for the stay, if that's a concern. Just fax a copy of your paid folio to the PC customer service centre with a note -- better still a print-out of your original HI confirmation -- explaining your surprise upon arrival/check-in that this was no longer an HI. They will credit the same number of points you would have earned as a courtesy.

opus17

It was present tense -- I checked in on Wednesday, checked out a few hours ago.

I didn't even realize until Thursday that it wasn't a Holiday Inn anymore.

(When I checked in, they made a point of telling me that my PC number was on the reservation).

One weird thing was the rate (as booked) was split, with Wednesday costing about $30/night less than Thursday and Friday. When I checked out, the rate was the lower one for all three nights. I'm guessing the switch-over happened on Thursday.

BTW -- this is a decent hotel. I normally stay at the Doubletree Guest Suites (now the Hilton Suites) when in Chicago. Those rooms are nicer, but this hotel isn't bad, and they let you use the health club in the same building, if that kind of thing is important to you.

DoctorB

Personally I stay regularly at the Crowne Plaza Metro - 10 mins walk from downtown, close to all the Greek restaurants. The Hotel was recently refurbished - it's great (in my opinion). Staff are relazed and friendly...I ended up joining the doorman and his mates at a Blues place.

I get a corporate rate of $129/night and am close to where I need to work when I'm in town.

I mut admit that I haven't stayed at any other Hotel in Chicago so cannot compare.