Lido House, Autograph Collection — Hotel in Newport Beach

Our Saturday night local staycation at the Lido House Autograph Collection in Newport Beach (to celebrate our anniversary again with some local friends also celebrating theirs) was absolutely wonderful. The hotel really went overboard in welcoming us and helping us celebrate, even upgrading us to a balcony room with pool view despite being sold out. It was a truly memorable and impressive stay even for being so local.|#ambassadorstatusmatters #newportbeach #autograph #autographcollection #upgrade #earlycheckin #latecheckout #amazingservice ||Both the GM and director of rooms called us beforehand to confirm that everything would be ready and waiting for us (and to unnecessarily apologize that they wouldn’t be on property). Very impressive but still most unexpected.||Despite being sold out, the hotel made early check in available to us from about 2 pm. They also approved us for 4 pm late checkout. ||The whole team really went overboard for us. ||Not only chocolate covered strawberries and champagne, but also a charcuterie plate as a welcome amenity. A happy anniversary sign over the bed. Lovely notes from my Ambassador and the hotel’s director of rooms. And a gift bag with cute hats and towels for the pool. They clearly had received my #prearrivalchecklist and encouragement from my Ambassador! ||The air con accidentally had been turned off before we arrived, but we quickly got it back to 65 F. They did forget to leave extra bottles of water for our arrival, but a simple call to the front desk solved that. ||The front desk manager also gave me four tokens at check in for free round of drinks at their rooftop bar, Topside, a really generous and over the top gesture that I first declined — to no avail. He insisted. ||And I thought that was the embarrassment of riches. More was to come. ||We had a great time at the Topside rooftop bar with friends also celebrating their anniversary — with several rounds of great drinks and lots of yummy appetizers — before heading to dinner at nearby Fable & Spirit. The Topside rooftop really is a fabulous and super popular spot. Since they’d given us a free round, I tipped our server really well.||Breakfast was lovely in their Mayors Table restaurant. It was pretty packed, and yet the service was still great. Food was tasty. ||Shower pressure was great. WiFi was great at 60 Mbps up and down. ||But imagine my surprise when the final invoice showed the hotel also had applied a $250 credit to cover our entire Topside drinks and appetizers, as well as breakfast. All that was left was $69 valet parking, $50 destination fee, plus some of my bar tip. Incredibly generous and really unexpected. An embarrassment of riches, indeed.||Talk about rolling out the red carpet for us. Wowzers. ||This was only our second local staycation here, and they really hit it it out of the park. What an amazing 24 hours. ||I can’t recommend Lido House enough. It borders on Luxury Collection level...

The property itself is lovely and the staff was friendly. The problems stem with Marriott itself. Compared to the SPG program, as a Titanium Elite Member that just redeemed nearly 750K hard earned points to stay at this property with my family during my wedding, I'm less than satisfied with the experience. I requested use of my Suite night awards for my own room during the stay right when I booked the hotel (way in advance) - not only was it not honored (when there were suites available in the hotel), I've yet to see a re-deposit of the award into my account. (Which probably doesn't matter since they expire end of the year, so how will I use them anyway? They seem completely worthless. This would never have happened in the SPG program). Getting my breakfast credits for all the rooms was a challenge. Michael in the hotel had arranged with me to move all the credits from the other rooms I had my family in to my room so I didn't have to split the breakfast bill into 10 when I was hosting everyone. At check out, my bill was completely wrong and the person at the front desk was unable to comprehend what was wrong with my bill. It took over 30 minutes of my standing at the front desk to get a corrected bill. I week after I've checked out, I've yet to receive my welcome amenity for all the rooms (which happened last time I had booked multiple rooms at one of the Autograph Collection hotels a few months ago in Costa Mesa)- It took tons of calling to get my awards credited. I'm sure the same will happen this time. Getting guaranteed late check out past 1:30 was impossible. And of course it's simply absurd that I pay for multiple rooms (10 rooms, 15 nights) during this stay but I'm credited for one room, making it impossible to earn enough stays to keep my status this year. (which is the same thing that happened in Costa Mesa). The Marriott rewards program for Elite Members is horrible compared to SPG. I'm also a Vistana Owner. I bought my fractional interest due to the fantastic SPG program. It's now a noose around my neck. It's expensive and it's no longer rewarding. Due to my huge frustration with not getting upgraded to a Suite, I called the Titanium Elite line for help. They were very nice and offered to call the hotel to see if anything had been done (after the hotel of course told my I had to call Marriott to do anything and they couldn't help). The representative that helped me confirmed there were suite's available and...

My Wife and I had just gotten married and were Honeymooning. This was the last stop of our trip that we planed to stay 3 days/ 2 nights. We had booked a King Bed well over a month before our stay. When we arrived to our room, they had given us 2 double beds. We went back to the front desk and asked if we could be moved to the room we had booked and paid for, or we would pay for an upgrade or would like a refund and explained the situation of the double beds/ honeymoon. They denied all our requests and basically said we weren't preferred members, so we would be bumped for the other guests. That was extremely embarrassing to be told this in the Lobby. Being treated like second class after paying a lot of money for this hotel, it ruined our honeymoon. We reached out to the Lido about 3-4 times and finally talked to the manager over the phone. She said we could get a full refund if we reached out to our credit card company(who we booked the hotel through) and have them contact the hotel. So we immediately did that, and our credit card company was appalled by how we were treated. They got a hold of management and wanted to start the process, and while being put on hold for over 20 minutes, the manager left and would not return that night so they said no one would be able to authorize the refund. So the Credit Card Company has filed multiple complaints and told us they felt brushed off and extremely disrespected as well. So we had no choice but to stay that night, out of default pay for the expensive room. The next morning we got up and decided to check out and demanded the refund that they had promised us. They decided not to refund us for the 2 nights but the best they would do is refund the night we stayed, but we would have to pay for the next night we weren't staying (which coincidentally was the more expensive night of the 2). The manager would not come out to meet us (knew our whole situation and knew we had a long drive back home and had to get back on the road) so also wouldn't give us a time when we could meet to discuss it. The management basically hung the front desk ladies out to dry and deal with the guests. The first front desk lady was rude, the second lady was nice and felt extremely bad and agreed we got screwed over. We were promised a call back or email from management, it's been 3 days later and still nothing. Apparently our money wasn't green enough for them and the disrespect we were shown was beyond...