We love to travel, and like most frequent travelers, we make a point of using the perks our credit cards offer. One of our go-tos is booking hotels through American Express Fine Hotels and Resorts. When I book through that program, I trust that AMEX has done the vetting on my behalf before adding a property to its list. That’s a level of brand trust they’ve built over decades, and the hotels participating in the program benefit from that loyalty when guests like us choose to stay with them.
In exchange for that trust, AMEX negotiates real perks for its members. Early check-ins, room upgrades, a daily breakfast for two, and a $100 resort credit on the property. You could probably find the same room cheaper on Hotels.com or Expedia, but you’d lose the perks that genuinely add up. The breakfast alone usually covers any price difference, and the welcome at AMEX-affiliated properties feels noticeably warmer. There’s almost always a thoughtful gift waiting in the room when you arrive.
Whenever you book through AMEX, you receive a welcome letter at check-in that re-lists all your amenities, and those amenities are also posted on the online portal at the time of booking. I’m particular about how we travel, so I review every flight and hotel detail myself before anything is booked. I carry a travel packet with me on every trip, with custom tabs holding copies of all our confirmation numbers and booking reference numbers. Is it a little over the top 😊, maybe, but it’s saved me more than once.
Recently, during our travels through China, we checked into the Ritz Carlton in Xi’an. When we booked the Xi’an property, there were no restrictions listed on the amenities. At check-in, though, we were handed a laundry list of exclusions on the $100 food credit. No fish. No expensive items. No takeaway. No tea or snacks from the lobby. The list went on, and I was genuinely puzzled about what we were actually allowed to order. If you wanted to apply the credit toward the spa, you had to book a minimum 60-minute service. I couldn’t follow the logic. Why would it matter where I spend the credit on their property? Their obligation was to provide $100 in credits, and the rest should be up to the guest.
I pulled out my travel packet and showed them, very clearly, that none of those restrictions existed on the AMEX portal at the time of booking. They could not add restrictions after the fact. I have three growing boys, and food matters in our home 😊. Language was a bit of a barrier, but I asked for the duty manager and made it clear that I’d be raising this with AMEX directly. The fine print they were citing was not on the website when we booked, and my packet proved it. They tried to insist their sales manager had said it was listed, but the evidence was right there in front of them.
Once they realized I was serious, the tone shifted. They called up to the room, offered to make our dinner reservations, and every evening we returned to fresh flowers on the bed. We ended up eating at the buffet most nights. Even then, they informed us that the discounted evening buffet price was 398 yuan (around $80 USD), but if we used our $100 credit, we’d be charged the higher 479 yuan rate. Read that again. They were charging us more so we could use a credit we’d already earned through loyalty. That isn’t service. That’s a workaround designed to protect the property’s margin at the expense of the guest experience.
Here’s why I’m sharing this. The money was never the point. The principle was. A Ritz Carlton, an American brand operating on American brand equity, was penny-pinching loyal guests through fine print that wasn’t disclosed at booking. We’ve stayed at Ritz properties all over the world, and this was a first for us. It completely changed how we’ll think about that property going forward, and honestly, how we evaluate the brand as a whole now.
The Leadership Problem Behind the Fine Print
There are a few leadership learnings worth pulling out of this.
The first is that brand trust is borrowed, not owned. When you partner with an organization like AMEX, you’re borrowing the loyalty their members have built with them. The moment you treat those members as a margin opportunity instead of a relationship, you erode trust on both sides, your own brand and your partner’s. Every leader should be asking their team how partnerships are being honored in time, not just on paper.
The second is that fine print is a leadership choice. Somebody at that property decided to write those exclusions, train the front desk on them, and let guests find out at check-in rather than at booking. That isn’t a process problem. That’s a values problem, and it starts at the top. Whenever your team is using policy to avoid honoring a commitment, you have a culture issue to address.
The third is that the front line carries your brand. The duty manager and the front desk staff weren’t the ones who wrote that policy, but they were the ones standing in front of an upset guest defending it. Great leaders don’t put their people in that position. If your policies require your team to argue with loyal customers, you’ve already lost the relationship.
Loyalty Is Lost in Small Moments
The last one is the most important. Loyalty is hard earned, and it’s also easily lost in small moments. We didn’t leave that hotel because the room was bad or the staff was unkind. We left feeling like the brand had quietly taken advantage of us. That feeling sticks, and it travels. It shows up in the conversations I’ll have with other frequent travelers, in the recommendations I won’t make, and in the bookings we’ll redirect to other properties going forward.
If you’re leading a service business, take a hard look at your own fine print. Where are your policies designed to protect you instead of serve the guest? Where is your team being asked to defend something that quietly chips away at trust? Because the cost of getting that wrong isn’t $20 on a buffet bill. It’s the customer you spent years earning, walking away over something you could have fixed in a single conversation.
