I fail to see the advantage here, yes they have your key card ready, but checking in is not that much of a time-consuming process, right?

Then when you try to charge something to the room they tell you your credit card is not linked to the booking and you have to go and interface with the front desk again...

Most definitely some room for improvement there

 

I agree, all it does is cutting down on the front desk taking your details. I have not use this function once.

On the CC front I have been told that the website will shortly be able to store your CC details, thus eliminating the repeated entering of the details with every booking.

 

I had my 3rd eligible stay for the LCAH February offer last night. As I feared, it was treated as the 2nd stay (because of the on-line check in for the 1st stay) and I received 3,000 points instead of 4,000. I have sent a message to the Guest Relations Coordinator containing the full history (1st stay initially not eligible, 2nd stay treated as first stay, both eventually corrected) and do expect that it will be corrected this time as well. If not I will send a PM.

 

Slightly against my better judgement, feeling curious, I accepted Accor's emailed offer to check in online for a stay in Chicago last week.

There were no obvious benefits on arrival at the hotel (other than being thanked "for using our new online system"). I didn't have to show ID to collect my room key, but my credit card details had not been passed on from the reservation so we spent the same amount of time as usual at reception.

There were no negative consequences as far as I can tell. Points posted very quickly, including bonus points ("Stay Longer For More") -- OLCI doesn't appear to have 'adjusted' my booking date.

I did not receive an emailed bill, so checking out was no faster than usual. Overall, I can't see any good reason to repeat the exercise.

 

E-mails to guest relations remained unanswered for more than one week but missing points appeared in my account shortly after I sent a PM to Accor Concierge. Coincidence or not - all issues resolved now and for now I will not be using online check-in.

 

Has the issue regarding OLCI been resolved? I have one coming up this week and don't know if I should do it.

 

Yes, it has been solved. I had no problem to have the bonus/promo points posted recently when I OLCIed.

 

I will try to do Olci for my sofitel Sukhumvit stay this coming Friday. Who knows the system screw up and I will enjoy 3x bonus points

 

I checked in online at a Budapest Ibis Hotel for 2 Nights and got only 1 Night credited to my account, so be careful to use it, also my Room and keys wasnt ready when I arrived.

 

I had not used OLCI for a long time because of the issues it caused to promotions (booking data got overwritten by OLCI date). These issues apparently have been resolved, as the promotion points posted (more or less) correctly this time.

The OLCI however was not useful at all. I used it because I was in a hurry to get to a customer appointment and had hoped it would speed things up. It didn't. I provided passport details of myself and spouse during OLCI and also the complete company billing address. I also notified them about slightly early arrival time (between 2.30 and 3pm). Upon arrival at the hotel we were taken to the lounge and had to wait there until one of the staff had entered all details again manually. The room wasn't ready yet nor were the room keys.

At check out the billing address that I had entered during OLCI was not in their system, so I had to hand the lounge staff my business card and she had to re-enter all the details.

So in my case OLCI was a total waste of time.

 

This is my experience as well in most Accor hotels where I used OLCI. The only one it really worked was Sofitel Budapest.

 

I used online check in today for the first time in a few months. I got several error messages telling me to "amend or complete the details entered in the compulsory fields, shown in red". Needless to say, no fields were highlighted.

I persevered for the sake of the FT community. Reselecting my country and state didn't help. (In the past that has been a way to 'trick' Accor's IT into letting me book their hotels online.) Changing my address slightly (from "St" to "Street") did the trick.

Now we just have to wait and see whether anything at all will be expedited on arrival at the hotel.

 

I have used this a few weeks ago and as expected, it did nothing to expedite check-in procedures at the hotel. Hotel still went through the normal procedures, including asking me for my address details etc which should already be in the system.

What it did appear to help is for the Front Desk to have pre-allocated all the rooms already (bye bye upgrade!) and all the room keys for all guests were neatly put into a pile. Comically, they allocated me the wrong room (allocated a single room instead of my booked double room). When I went into my pre-allocated room and discovered the error, Front Desk was apologetic and then preceded to try and swap pre-allocated rooms around between guests who have not yet checked in, in order to give me a complimentary upgrade.

Compared to other hotel chains (such as Hilton Honors allowing you to pick your own room by DIY online check-in), Accor's online check-in functionality is a waste of time from my experience and I won't be doing it again!

 

I just tried online check in for Sofitel Bangkok Sukhumvit last week. As some posters have stated, it did not expedite the process. I did notice that they ask for your time of arrival during online check-in so maybe it's for the hotel staff to get your room ready without you having to wait?

 

Hello everyone

Thank you for your feedback on this issue. I have informed the team of your feedback, what would be great is if you could provide me with the hotel you used the online check in for that way the team can identify in which establishments there is room for improvement.

Best

Amy