Grand Mandarin Betong Hotel

The hotel rooms seems newly renovated, so they were in good condition. Lobby and other parts a bit older but no issue.

Even though repeatedly saying they should charge the cost in Thai Bath they charged in the card currency, which has a markup of 5.4%. They repeatedly refused to correct that saying they can only charge in the cards currency. A few hours later a friend checked in and had to tell them 18 times to charge in local currency and not the card's currency. Took him 20 minutes to convince them to do that. as they kept saying it was not possible, but in the end they did it anyway. It's just selecting the correct option on the payment terminal. Seems default hotel policy to ripoff their customers this way. My extra cost by their overcharging with poor exchange rate was about 375 THB. Also in the end they want 20 THB for the water bottles in the fridge. Hotel is fine if you can deal with these scammy tactics to squeeze a bit more out of the customers

The rooms had been recently refit and were in great condition. Beds were comfy, air conditioner was cool. The rest of the hotel and facilities were a bit run down.

Breakfast was very basic, we decided to eat breakfast out after first morning. Hot water took a long time to come from taps early in the morning. Shortage of shelves and cupboards. Not good if stay several days and like to unpack a bit. Not even a rack to put a case on.

The location is good. The room is newly furnished and it’s more modern that its exterior.

The air con is noisy and the serviceman cannot fix it