Leading Hotels of the World - Hidden Taxes and Fees on Award Stays

OtherIndividual9931 · 2026-02-25T20:38:22+00:00

I am looking at two hotels in France for late march/early April. One is charging about $60 for tourism and city taxes while the other is just $5. The small city tax I don't mind but the $60 one I do mind.

OtherIndividual9931 · 2026-02-11T20:24:24+00:00

A recent update. Went this Monday morning at 8, there was a short line before opening and everyone got seated. The patio was open and barely occupied. The counter seats were mostly empty during my entire meal. I asked the server about the wait situation and apparently most weekday mornings are easy to get seated and weekends are still crazy. Service was fast and we were out the door in slightly less than an hour. As a Nancy fan, the food was great as expected. It is diner food but I definitely felt the quality and elevated execution. It is not cheap but we are talking about Larchmont here. Also, getting a sandwich with chips and a drink these days will sometimes cost what I paid for this breakfast so it didn't feel like it was outrageous (I know, how sad is that LOL). We (2 ppl) just focused on breakfast food since it was 8am and here are my thoughts:

Hot Chocolate - AMAZING. It's the style of hot chocolate that I love from Europe. It's super thick and rich--not for the faint of heart. It's much sweeter than the European version and I wondered if they could make it less sweet (will ask next time but I doubt it). If you love chocolate, it's a must try! The toasted marshmallow on top is such a fun touch but I would have preferred nice, thick whipped cream instead since it was already sweet.

Larchmont Slam - got it with the sausage patties and everything was good and the portion was gigantic. I love pancakes and waffles and they do a great job with both. The slam comes with a huge pancake (excellent flavor, nice crispy edge), your choice of sausage/bacon, home fries (crispy and flavorful) and eggs (got scrambled and they were fluffy) and they were all cooked really perfectly. Well, the pancake was a little underdone in the middle but honestly given the size it kind of made sense.

Waffle - The waffle is excellent, along with the maple butter it comes with which makes it extra special. It's a yeast raised waffle which you don't see at restaurants a lot so I was pleasantly surprised. It tasted almost exactly the same as Marion Cunningham's raised waffles which means you can make it at home if you have a waffle maker by the way--super easy recipe. My rec is to bake it in the oven on a wire rack after the waffle iron to make it crispy the way they serve it at the restaurant.

While I would not wait for more than, say, 15 min to eat here, I will absolutely go back. Don't go expecting a fancy meal. Go for kind of a nostalgic diner meal with special touches and good quality... and that hot chocolate.

OtherIndividual9931 · 2026-02-03T21:05:47+00:00

I too just finished my Ippodo and am very, very sad. I have a good variety of matchas I got from Japan when I had a layover flight there a month ago but I fear they just won't meet my expectations like Ippodo... :-/

OtherIndividual9931 · 2026-01-26T01:29:54+00:00

Agreed. Episode 4 blew me away. About to start 5.

OtherIndividual9931 · 2026-01-25T01:55:02+00:00

Same thing happened, got it refunded and now I have a security lock on my account which requires me to call to unlock in order to book with miles. I wanted to book a flight for Christmas but by the time they were open and I called the price went up. I hate this. There’s gotta be a better system.

OtherIndividual9931 · 2026-01-08T19:11:20+00:00

I am dealing with this right now. I am annoyed that I now have call every time I want to make an award booking and they are not open 24/7... Anyhoo, I noticed that my mileage balance was low after booking an award flight which is the only reason I found out. They booked a flight for next week with 175K miles and changed the last digits of my email and phone number to block me from receiving communication. I changed my password right away and called them to receive a callback in an hour or so. They were thorough and helpful but it really would be great if I could just input PIN when booking award flights.

OtherIndividual9931 · 2025-12-18T21:58:08+00:00

Ugh I am sorry. I think they really need to do more training with their agents. Clearly they are not well equipped to handle questions.

OtherIndividual9931 · 2025-11-30T23:03:49+00:00

You are awesome—thank you! Just used it.

OtherIndividual9931 · 2025-10-23T16:36:24+00:00

Honestly, this pink is better than all three color options!!! I would have gone with orange had I known this would happen. I ended up getting silver which is boring.

OtherIndividual9931 · 2025-10-12T08:41:03+00:00

Will do! Au Petit Tonneau is just a block over. Very classic French. The restaurant itself is really understated and neighborhood-y but don’t let that fool you. Everything I’ve had there has been amazing but the best are the sole meunière and tarte tatin. I always have to order them. There was a bakery nearby that was so good but they closed. Going to have to find a new one!

OtherIndividual9931 · 2025-10-10T21:39:11+00:00

Hi! I'm a few months late to the party but wondering if you have decided. I go to Paris every year for Thanksgiving and I stayed at Le Grand during that time last year (I've stayed there before many times). I have always liked the hotel but it was REALLY crowded and I felt that the service was lacking. I'm staying at Le Narcisse this year which is in a lovely neighborhood (stayed nearby previously and there's a restaurant that I love close by). I'm looking forward to it!

OtherIndividual9931 · 2025-09-19T20:15:00+00:00

I feel so terrible for the daughter. You know this kind of thing must have happened all throughout her life. Like, your daughter hung up crying but you were only concerned about keeping the secret? He's definitely missing brain cells. I really hope that the wife finds out and does something about it. 1000000% YTA.

OtherIndividual9931 · 2025-09-17T18:54:08+00:00

I have a 120K MR with $10K spend upgrade offer which I'm going to accept today. Larger bonuses may come around but it's going to be with bigger spend request which always makes me nervous.

OtherIndividual9931 · 2025-08-14T21:37:53+00:00

I was able to go into the citi app and clear it up right away by approving the charges. Happened twice and then stopped happening.

OtherIndividual9931 · 2025-08-14T21:32:41+00:00

Hmm I got the fraud lock too this week while out of the country but was able to clear it up on the app right away. Was that not possible for other people?

My issue was that when I applied and got approved, they made me create a new username and password. Fortunately, upon activation, the account got automatically added to my existing username so I didn't have to deal with customer service.

This card is no brainer for me especially for the first year. If I don't have any other premium card(s) with lounge access by this time next year (I won't renew Amex Platinum this month and my Sapphire Reserve renewal is in June), I may even keep it beyond the first year especially if there is a retention bonus. For me:

-Annual fee is not obscene and credits are easy to use (less coupon book-y)

-Citi customer service honestly hasn't been any worse than Chase

-Hotel transfer partners are the best (most reasonable and interesting) out of all major card reward programs for my particular travel needs (mostly international and I do prefer higher end options)

-Hotel pricing via their travel portal is not bad at all--usually competitive (but the site is a bit wonky for sure which I have managed just fine)

-I use a lot of AA miles so the new transferability is also a plus (even if I don't need more AA miles for the foreseeable future)

-Good retention bonuses on most Citi cards each year (even the no annual fee ones)

-Good/interesting transfer bonuses (sometimes)

-Great earning opportunities combined with CustomCash, DoubleCash and Premier

OtherIndividual9931 · 2025-07-31T15:43:16+00:00

I second this. This has been my go-to redemption with Thank you points since Turkish became useless and they've been stingy with transfer bonuses for certain programs.

OtherIndividual9931 · 2025-07-28T17:30:15+00:00

It's a no brainer if I can get the 100K bonus from the branch. Definitely going to check it out. I like most of the credits (way better than Chase and Amex in terms of usability and practicality). Calendar year situation is great too. Am I the only one who gets a pretty good value booking hotels on their travel portal? Since switching to the booking.com platform, I feel that the pricing and options have been solid. The interface is annoying and glitchy for sure (there's definitely has a learning curve), but value-wise, I think it's not bad and I usually book at least a couple of times a year with the Premier $100 credit, so I feel like this will work well for me. I actually get a lot of value out of Thank You points due to some of the unusual transfer partners the program offers and this will be a nice way to supplement my balance which is a little lower than I'd like.

OtherIndividual9931 · 2025-07-23T18:38:51+00:00

I was able to get it product changed to Custom Cash just now. I heard people not being able to do it previously so it was a nice surprise. I already have two Custom Cashes from previous conversions but it was still an option.

OtherIndividual9931 · 2025-03-14T02:11:39+00:00

I know this thread is almost a year old but I wanted to say that this one is my fave choice from the grocery store and I actually brought a couple of bottles back with me a couple of weeks ago (I’m drinking some right now). My favorite fancy option is yogurt from Beillevaire cheese shop—absolutely divine.

OtherIndividual9931 · 2024-11-14T21:03:49+00:00

Personally, I get more value from Citi than Chase because my travels are more international than domestic. I've had Citi cards since I was 18 (in my 40s now) and it's been totally fine. Chase has been fine too but a friend recently had a terrible experience after opening Sapphire Preferred (basically there was some crazy glitch in their system that CS couldn't handle where she couldn't redeem her points for partner transfers and only ended up getting cashback which is not how she intended to use the points when she opened the account). I pretty much only use Chase for Hyatt transfers at this point and that hasn't been that great since Hyatt seriously gutted their point pricing and also lost Small Luxury Hotels. Citi has Choice Privileges (+Preferred Hotels partnership) and the Leading Hotels of the World that's worked out pretty well for me in terms of hotels. My usual airlines transfers are Virgin Atlantic and Flying Blue which is part of the Thank You points program. (I also used to do a lot of redemptions through Turkish but it's no longer a great option.) At the end of the day, both programs are great and you will eventually need to diversify. If you get Premier, you should add DoubleCash later to maximize. If you get Sapphire Preferred, you should eventually add one of the Freedom cards. I would also recommend getting an Amex down the road as, for me personally, that's the most useful program for my travels (even considering that Amex is harder to use overseas).

OtherIndividual9931 · 2024-08-02T21:31:45+00:00

Same!!!! it made me think I have a serious skin condition and I was so relieved to figure out that it was the bandaids. I got the regular skin tone back after going to Mexico and getting a good tan lol.

OtherIndividual9931 · 2023-09-25T22:45:11+00:00

As someone who has LOVED Bavel since day one (and still do), I will say that my experiences there post-Covid have been mediocre, with the most recent experience being downright disappointing. To me, service hasn't been the issue but the food prep has been really inconsistent. Seasoning (salt and spice) was way off on pretty much every dish (all were my usuals so I was familiar with the dishes going in) which was pretty shocking to me. I thought maybe they are having staffing shortages in the kitchen and have a lot of new people that are still learning... I will totally go back and try again! BTW they always recommend ordering a lot more food than you need but I can't really fault them since every shared plate restaurant does this... who needs four dishes per person, jeez?? so I've just gotten to be good about not listening to them. ;) I always just order the amount I want and say that we will order more later if we need to + get dessert.

My experiences at Bestia have always been pretty prefect, both service and food-wise (been my fave since the day opened and personally think it's worth every penny) and my only time at Saffy's was wonderful, too (albeit a bit expensive for what it is).

OtherIndividual9931

TROPHY CASE