I’ve had one real popup ad, and an another annoying popup that controls the access. It pops up every five minutes, but at least does not contain an ad.

Having recently stayed at the Holiday Inn Vienna and paid the not inexpensive room charge of Eur137 per night, I was asked to pay Eur10 for just one hour, or Eur4 for 10 minutes access!!

Surely it is time that these charges were included in the cost of the room, in the same way that breakfast is normally included?

By contrast the Scandic hotels are excellent, not just because of the breakfasts, but they offer free wireless internet access. I did have a little trouble with the connection at the Scandic in Vilnius (Lithuania) recently which was terribly slow – an American guest was complaining bitterly about it at reception – but hey, we are talking about Lithuania, not the USA, and at least it was free.

Marriott’s relationship with the Internet service provider Superclick includes an agreement to exclude all popups on our high-speed service. However, Superclick explained to us that whenever upgrades are made to the system, pop ups are automatically activated and need to be manually turned off. Apparently, we got upgraded and were unaware of it until you notified our front desk. At that time, we notified Superclick and the pop ups were immediately turned off. We are talking with Superclick to ensure that they alert us about all future upgrades.

That said, I agree with the anonymous commenter above regarding standards for chain hotels. Inconsistency (resulting from franchising, or for any other reason) may not have been the cause of this specific internet issue, but it’s a problem across the industry, from the customer’s point of view.

This is what hotel franchising with lousy oversight by the mothership gives you. Renaissance (or Marriott, or all of the hotel chains really) need to set better standards. If they even bother to think this stuff through.

Should hotels charge for wi-fi ? If so, then they shouldn’t be putting pop-up banners on your screen. Point, counterpoint, and a worst-case scenario….

I assumed I had picked up some adware. Since the laptop is new, I haven’t had a chance to install spyware/adware software, so I paid for AdAware Pro and ran it. The ads kept showing up.

Unless he physically installed software on his machine, ads aren’t likely to “Force” their way in during a presentation.