I'm truly speechless. This was my last stay at a Sheraton hotel.
December 2025
I'm truly speechless; I thought nothing could surprise me anymore, but I was wrong. I made the mistake of giving Sheraton Frankfurt Airport, as a Platinum member, the chance to prove that their service had improved, three times on different dates, this year and at the end of last year, even though as a Lifetime Diamond member I'm used to excellent service at the Hilton Frankfurt Airport, where I'm a regular guest. And once again, I was disappointed by Sheraton. The first stay wasn't particularly pleasant. I arrived with my 16-year-old son, who has had four heart surgeries, an artificial heart valve, two stents in his narrowed pulmonary arteries, and also suffers from multiple sclerosis. We should have just taken the train home, but we decided to stay overnight at the Sheraton, God knows why. We supposedly received an upgrade to a Deluxe room, but it only had a kettle and tea, which was quite disappointing. The Executive Lounge is open 24 hours, but the offerings are not comparable to Hilton. At midnight, we were woken up because the guests in the next room had ordered food and were having quite loud conversations with the room service employee. My son, since he was 3 years old, has learned from me that you never talk in the hotel hallway, neither during the day nor at night, so as not to disturb other guests. After that, the night was ruined; we couldn't fall back asleep. We then took an earlier train home, so we didn't have breakfast in the restaurant. The second time, at the beginning of November, I came alone. After my last internal hotel review, they made a bit more of an effort. I received a suite at the end of the hallway from Sergio, a nice letter of apology from the Front Desk Manager Panos Papoulias, and a few amenities. Normally, I always receive the welcome letters from the General Manager or Director of Operations. It was the overnight stay before my flight to the USA. My wife is a teacher, and my son is back at his old high school after two years at the international Wilhelm von Humboldt online school, so they could only join me during the Christmas holidays. Therefore, before breakfast, I informed an older employee that I had made a third booking for my wife and son for the night of December 19th to 20th. I assumed, as is customary at Hilton, that they would naturally have access to the Club Lounge. She said that without me, they wouldn't be granted access, which completely ruined my appetite for breakfast. Sergio overheard this and kindly upgraded my wife and my now 17-year-old son to a Club Room and granted them access to the Club Lounge, which was very kind of him. I didn't end up having breakfast after all.
Last night, they arrived here in Orlando after 36 hours of travel, completely exhausted; my son, in particular, was not feeling well at all. They traveled by train from the North Sea to Frankfurt, spent about 7 hours at the Sheraton Hotel, and then flew via Paris and Philadelphia to Orlando. Then I couldn't believe my ears: the employee didn't give them a Club Room or access to the Club Lounge, even though it was clearly stated in the booking, and therefore I couldn't even use one of my upgrade vouchers that I received through my status. No breakfast or even a grab-and-go breakfast was offered. My wife was even asked to show the employee my ID for check-in, even though she had a copy of my booking with the confirmed upgrades from Sergio. She couldn't reach me by phone because I was busy changing hotels in Orlando; it would only have been possible via FaceTime. So, we had a total of three nights and not a single breakfast. Essentially, we had booked two rooms for the flight. If we had flown on the same day, we would have gone to the lounge and had breakfast together. Considering they only spent 7 hours at the hotel, this is beyond outrageous.
Now I understand why the reviews for the Sheraton Frankfurt Airport aren't particularly good. I'm a Platinum member with Sheraton, a Platinum member with IHG, and a Lifetime Diamond member with Hilton, with a total of 190 nights this year. This time, but certainly for the last time, I had 51 nights with the Bonvoy Marriott Group, including 3 nights on different days at the Sheraton Frankfurt Airport. I'm usually a regular guest at the Hilton Frankfurt Airport, but after about 17 years of only staying at Hilton hotels, I wanted to give Sheraton another chance to see if the service had improved. From the early 2000s, I was a Platinum member with Sheraton for several years, which was the highest status at SPG back then.
At that time, thanks to my highest status with Emirates, I received Gold status with Hilton as a promotion from the airline. I then switched between hotel groups several times in Australia and quickly realized that the Gold status at Hilton was better than the Platinum status at Sheraton/SPG.
After that, until last year, with my approximately 2000 nights, I never stayed at a Sheraton again. Last year, I wanted to give Sheraton, and now the Bonvoy Marriott Group, a second chance, unfortunately without success; nothing has changed, it's actually only gotten worse.
