Element By Marriott Philadelphia Downtown

“Great hotel, but billing / payment process is irritating and needs to be more transparent”

Hey Element staff: As promised, here is my critical review! :-) So, first things first, everybody: This hotel is very nice. Operationally. The staff are all adequately professional, and everybody seems very well-trained for hospitality. (Toya and Deborah... wow, those two are especially breath… more

Hey Element staff: As promised, here is my critical review! :-) So, first things first, everybody: This hotel is very nice. Operationally. The staff are all adequately professional, and everybody seems very well-trained for hospitality. (Toya and Deborah... wow, those two are especially breaths of fresh air. They are really very thoughtful/lovely and if hotel management can figure out how to clone those two, it should.) I was very pleased/grateful to somehow get upgraded to a corner suite for all 6 nights of my stay, as Titanium. The room is well-appointed. (If you need slippers, you should bring your own; I had my own slippers, but maybe they have some if you ask, I'm not sure.) Breakfast is apparently complimentary for all guests, starting daily at 6:30am. It's basic -- scrambled and hard-boiled eggs, potato skillet (with peppers), turkey sausage, and then one starch (rotating through pancakes, waffles, and french toast throughout the week, if I recall correctly). But while that sounds basic, it's very well-prepared and a great start to the day. There's also unlimited bagels (plain and everything bagels), pastries, English muffins, and white/wheat bread for toasting. And cream cheese and butter available. And finally, bananas/oranges/apples, and greek yogurt (where you can add any of 6-7 toppings: I added sliced almonds, dried cranberries, and shredded coconut). Tea; or coffee both drip (both caf and decaf) and espresso machine. All things considered, this breakfast punches WAY above its weight. Very substantial and well-presented (hot!) food. If you are trying to decide between this hotel and others, and you're concerned about getting an excellent breakfast to start your day, say no more, this Element has you covered. They have two bikes (total) available for rent, for free, complete with helmets and locks. My colleague and I checked them out. Great service. There's also a small business center and a small gym on the same floor as the lobby. I delivered a replacement credit card and a printer-sized package to the hotel. Not the smoothest pick-up process from the front desk, but still OK. While the staff is very responsive overall if you approach them face-to-face at the front desk, I found the staff to be far less responsive via the Marriott app's chat. Most of my interactions there were slow and some of the interactions were not completely addressed. OK, so, RECAP: Staff at front desk, great. Toya and Deborah, insane amazing, bottle them up if you can. Breakfast, for champions. Bikes and package delivery, excellent. Service via chat app, mediocre. Anddddd this is where I get to the billing / payment experience, which is irritatingly non-transparent. When you check in, everything seems to be going smoothly. The staff asks you for your name and ID, and then confirms your status and # of nights stay. Pretty standard, no problem. But at that point, they tell you to insert your credit card into the payment terminal in front of you. Does it sound good to you so far? The problem, dear reader, is that YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH YOU'RE PAYING. In spite of having a 5" digital screen in front of you, the payment terminal indicates nothing too. And the staff also say nothing. And then you look on your smartphone, and your reservation booking payment amount and the credit card charge don't match. In the end, after my stay, which was broken up into a handful of stays (due to paying via points, free night certificates, and cash), everything turned out OK. But that front desk payment experience is still nonetheless unsettling. If you complain to the front desk management, the managers will all tell you that they "understand that it is confusing". Folks, this is not "confusing". This payment experience is senseless. SENSELESS. Borderline unprofessional. In almost 30 years of business travel, staying at hotels ranging from 3-stars to 5-stars to Royalty-stars, I've never encountered a hotel where you hand over a credit card with no idea how much you are paying... no digital screen, no paper invoice, not even a verbal/oral message from staff ("Sir, today on your credit card you will be paying $ XYZ."). ((( To fellow guests: Be prepared for that payment process at the front desk; it can be very disorienting. And then, within 1-3 days after your stay, be sure to cross-check your credit card bill with your original reservation details and the invoices that the hotel gives to you. To Element hotel management: This payment process/experience is not pleasant to stomach. Trying to tell the guest that the payment process is "confusing" is quite shameful, as a matter of practice. It needs to be corrected. ))) The entire hotel stay experience, to me, rates as 4.5 out of 5. The 1/2 bubble demerit comes from that payment experience, and it's the kind of 4.5 where you don't know whether to round down or round up. But ultimately, maybe it was Toya / Deborah that save the day and round the stay up for me, to 5 out of 5!

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