This is one of "those" stories. Longtime readers of this site will know what I mean by that. I told this story many years ago, way before I began blogging, in a column I wrote but for some reason, I shortened and simplified it all down. This is the real, more interesting version — but first, this cautionary note…
For many years, I traveled to New York about once a year to meet with publishers, see friends, see shows and sometimes attend a convention. Also, I just plain liked being in New York and I expect I will again when The Pandemic is over and such travels resume. When I was picking and paying for the place I stayed, I usually stayed at a hotel called the Rihga Royal which was located at 151 West 54th Street.
Note the past tense. This is not a recommendation of that hotel because it isn't there anymore. There is a hotel there and it's the same building with a different name and different management and I have no idea how good or bad it is. It's actually changed owners and names several times since it was the Rihga.
I first stayed there in the nineties at the recommendation of Brenda, a nice lady who was my travel agent back when some of us used travel agents rather than book our flights and accommodations ourselves on the Internet. She got me a great rate and I liked it enough to stay there even after she could no longer get me as great a rate. The first time I took my friend Carolyn back there, we stayed at the Rihga.
The next time we went, I called to book it and the same room was now more than double the price…so I didn't book it. By now, not only was Brenda out of the travel agency business but her travel agency was out of the travel agency business. I looked around, found a cheaper place and made a reservation…but I didn't feel good about it.
Then I remembered something. Ten or fifteen years earlier, my Business Manager Ron had said to me, "I enrolled you in the American Express bonus points plan. Every time you use your AMEX card, you get points and they don't expire. Someday, you'll use them to take a nice vacation or something." I'd paid no attention to my running point total but I suddenly decided that maybe I should. I logged into the American Express website and found that I had something like 500,000 points. Just sitting there, unused. It was like finding money in an old pair of pants.
I called the Rihga Royal and asked if they accepted American Express bonus points for free hotel rooms. It turned out they did not.
So I called another hotel in New York I like — the Marriott Marquis in Times Square — and asked if they accepted American Express bonus points. Turned out, they did. "How many," I asked, "do I need for five free nights?" The answer: 150,000. I immediately booked us into the Marriott Marquis and canceled the other reservation. Great, terrific, perfect. Thank you, Ron.
Cut to five weeks later. It was two days before our departure when I got a phone call from someone in the Marriott organization telling me we couldn't stay for those five nights at the Marriott Marquis. Either the reservations clerk or a computer or both had erred, he explained. Two of those five nights were "blackout dates" for which one could not use bonus points. He said I had the following three options…
- I could pay cash for the two blackout nights…a very high rate.
- We could stay at the Marriott Marquis for the three odd-numbered nights and move to some other hotel for the two even-numbered nights.
- I could cancel the entire reservation and find some other hotel.
I suggested a fourth option…
- They could waive this silly "blackout dates" option and let us stay there all five nights just as they said we could when I booked the reservation.
He said they couldn't do that. I said yes, they could. He said no, the computer won't allow it. I said, "That's nonsense. Can you connect me to someone higher up in the company than you who can say, 'Gee, we screwed up here. We have to make it right for you' and authorize me to stay five consecutive nights in the hotel I booked to spend five consecutive nights in?" He said such a person would call me within the hour.
Fifty-nine minutes later, someone above him called me and said, "Gee, we screwed up here. We have to make it right for you." But he insisted that even the president of the corporation couldn't override the computer and allow me to spend those nights at the Marriott Marquis on American Express bonus points.
I said, "It sounds like the computer is the president of the corporation."
He chuckled and said, "Maybe. But I have another solution. Instead of charging you 150,000 points to stay at the Marriott Marquis, how about if we charge you 130,000 points to stay those five nights at the J.W. Marriott, which is the newest Marriott in the same area? In fact, it just opened a few days ago. The computer will let me book you in there."
I asked where it was. He said it was located at 54th and 7th, which was a very good location for me, given where I had to go while in town. That wasn't far from the Rihga Royal. I also thought, "A brand-new Marriott? How bad could that be?" So I booked it and when I got off the phone with him, I went online and looked up the exact address.
The J.W. Marriott, I discovered, was at 151 West 54th Street. That meant it wasn't near the Rihga Royal. It was the Rihga Royal. The Marriott people had bought it and changed the name.
So Carolyn and I flew back to New York as per the schedule, pleased we were going to be staying at our favorite hotel even if it was operating under an assumed name. As things turned out, it wasn't that simple.
The limo dropped us off in front of the hotel at 151 West 54th Street and it didn't say "Rihga Royal" on the front. It didn't say "J.W. Marriott," either. There was a blank sign over the front door.
A lady at the front desk asked, "May I help you?" I said, "Yes. You can tell us the name of this hotel." She said, "I'm sorry but we don't know."
She explained: It had been the Rihga Royal. Then about two weeks before we got there, it became the J.W. Marriott and the sign outside said that until a few days ago. Then there was some sort of legal squabble over the sale and several somebodies were suing several other somebodies over ownership. "The lawyers agreed the hotel should stay open and operational while the matter gets settled in court," she said. "But we had to take down the sign."
I asked, "How do you answer the phone when someone calls?"
Just then, the phone did ring and she said, "Like this…" She picked up the receiver and said, "Hotel!"
We checked in after she assured us that despite its lack of name, it was the same hotel it was days ago when it was a J.W. Marriott and weeks ago when it was the Rihga Royal. Same rooms, same staff, same amenities, same showers (the showers in the Rihga Royal could make you want to spend your entire time in Manhattan in one), same everything. The only odd thing about the place was that in some spots, you'd see the "RR" logo of the Rihga and in some, the "JWM" logo of the new (maybe) owners. When folks asked us where we were saying this trip, we enjoyed telling them we were in an Unlisted Hotel.
It was a great five days. Carolyn walked through Central Park and browsed museums. I went to the DC Comics offices, the Marvel Comics offices, the offices of MAD magazine, etc. We had lunch with Joe Simon. We ate at Carolyn's favorite restaurant, the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station.
We went to shows, including what was then the hottest, impossible-to-get-a-ticket-to show on Broadway, the recently-opened The Producers starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick. I managed to get house seats from the author…and I don't mean Mel Brooks. These were the house seats of the author of Springtime for Hitler, the play within the play, Franz Liebkind. I got them from Brad Oscar, the fine actor who originated that role on Broadway. You may have seen Brad featured on this blog not long ago in this post.
Finally, it was time to return home. On a balmy New York morning just before Check-Out Time, Carolyn and I checked out and hauled our luggage out to the curb. There, we were to wait for the limo to the airport.
Outside, we noted something had changed. The sign over the door now said "J.W. Marriott." One of us said, "I guess they settled the legal dispute."
Just then, a man wearing a dark suit and dark glasses came up to us and said, "I'm sorry, folks. You can't wait here. I need to move you up the street about fifteen yards." I noticed he was wearing an earpiece and that there were other men dressed like him scurrying about. Also, a number of photographers.
I said, "We're just waiting for the limo I ordered to take us to the airport."
He said, "I understand that but I can't have you waiting here. We'll help you move your bags up to where it'll be okay for you to wait." He and another man wearing dark glasses and an earpiece moved us about fifteen yards. I asked the first man, "Are you Secret Service?"
He said — with a bit of a twinkle — "We're not allowed to say." Okay, I had my answer.
Just then, three black luxury vehicles pulled up at the spot where Carolyn and I had been standing. Two rope lines had been set up, forming a path from the rear seat of one of the vehicles to the door of what I assumed was now the J.W. Marriott. More men in dark glasses swarmed about, the guys with cameras crowded the rope lines and Hillary Clinton got out of the back seat. She waved to some cheering onlookers, posed briefly under the sign for the photographers and then headed into the hotel where, we later heard, she was to speak at a luncheon.
Within two minutes all of it was gone — the black vehicles, the men in sunglasses, the photographers, the passers-by who'd crowded around…all of it. Carolyn waved down our limo as it arrived and as its driver loaded our suitcases into the back, we saw a man on a ladder taking down the J.W. Marriott sign, returning the hotel to its anonymous condition. They'd just put it back up for the photo-op.
If I understand correctly, the hotel briefly became the Rihga Royal again, then it was the J.W. Marriott because, you know, they couldn't let that sign go to waste. At some point, it became The London for a while and now it's the Conrad New York Midtown. I hope they all kept those showers.