The Whitby Hotel in New York

There is no doubt that the hotel is lovely - and extortionary expensive as a result. The staff were largely lovely apart from a very sullen maitre d in the restaurant who was so moody there were complaints! I cant say that it was value for money though, especially given the atrocious customer service I had afterwards. Like all hotels, Whitby puts a "hold" on your card when you arrive to cover costs. however, the hold is 150% of your expected bill - and this hold is not removed by the Whitby promptly. As a result, four days after leaving the hotel, a whopping $9000 hold exists over my current account - even after i have paid $65000 bill for four nights - and this has resulted in all my direct debits and other payments being declined causing chaos for me and hardship. It is a nightmare - and the Whitby couldn't give a sh+t. Awful.

This was probably our fourth time staying at this hotel. Unfortunately, 4th is not a charm! When we initially arrived with our car, there were pylons in the street in front of the hotel, and in order for us to stop and unload our bags, these pylons needed to be removed. Despite our sounding the horn, no one from the hotel came out to help, so my wife found herself moving the pylons on her own. The junior suite that we had reserved was comfortable enough, however, the issues we had with the hotel were largely with the restaurant. We had breakfasts and a food allowance since we booked through AMEX and these credits were for the Fine Resorts and Hotels program. Two days in a row for breakfast, we had disappointing service coupled with incompletely cooked dishes. The first day, the problem was with pancakes that were not cooked throughout. When being sent back, there was an inordinate delay in getting a new order, and I finished my breakfast and basically stared at empty plates for 20-25 minutes. During this somewhat extended delay, I requested another pot of coffee, with this request basically forgotten. We did speak with the restaurant manager, who apologized profusely. Thinking that this couldn’t happen again, the next morning we had a bit of a repeat performance, This time it was basically cold sides of grilled tomatoes and portobello mushrooms — these being intended to be hot, with the rest of the meal. Again, extraordinarily inattentive service. Speaking again with the restaurant manager, I asked him why they (1) automatically add a 20% service charge, even when the service is anything but befitting a generous tip, and (2) have the audacity to exclude the MANDATORY gratuity from the breakfast and food allowance, requiring us to pay for the gratuity on our checkout. He did agree to provide us with credit for these charges, however, to our surprise, such credit was not reflected on our bill upon checkout. For the third day, the hotel manager came to our table and told us that he hoped that we would receive good service on this third day, and was apologetic. When asked whether there might be some expression of good faith concession on our bill, he handed us his business card and essentially said, contact him if/when we might come back to the hotel. I told him that we might have a different view of returning if some concession commensurate with the poor service had been provided, but none was forthcoming. In the category of another annoyance, the room charges from the mini bar are not counted towards the $100 per day food and beverage credit for the AMEX Fine Resorts and Hotels program. I made the mistake of taking a Celsius drink on the first day, which amounted to the princely sum of $10 — and no credit. This is a tacky policy, particularly for a room for which we charged approximately $1,000 per night. On the positive side, the hotel and our room were nicely furnished, and the food was not bad (except for the dishes cited