Motto by Hilton Hong Kong SoHo in Hong Kong

The room was tiny, couldn't even fit my luggage. When we checked in around 2 PM, the front desk said no rooms were available until 3 PM. I asked if we could upgrade to an available room type, but they said they've never upgraded anyone before. Fair enough, we didn't want to make things difficult for them and waited on the third floor. Around 2:30 PM, my friend went down to grab a snack and saw other foreigners checking in directly. When my friend asked, the front desk said rooms were now available. My friend asked if we could check in then, and she said we needed to register our ID.

The thing is, we'd already provided our IDs when we first arrived and even asked if we'd need them again when a room became available, and the front desk said no. When we pointed this out, she acted like she didn't know, saying if we wanted to check in now, we had to resubmit them... So we had to go back up to get our IDs just to check in! And why didn't the front desk inform us when a room became available? If my friend hadn't coincidentally seen it, would we have just waited foolishly until 3 PM? Even budget hotels costing a few hundred yuan offer better service than this. For an internationally renowned brand, the basic service training is clearly lacking.