I have read numerous times on this website how travellers believe they are treated with less respect because they have used an agency to book a room rather than dealing directly with the hotel. Having never experienced it, I'd read these reviews with some doubt, but when staying at the Intercontinental Times Square arriving 28 September '12, we encountered this first-hand ourselves. Not pleasant!
The room was meant to be ready at 3pm. We arrived at 6pm. The manager explained that due to the previous guest's late checkout, the room was not ready. I suggested we come back in half an hour, which he scoffed at & stated that a room takes at least an hour to clean. There was no apology, or offer of complimentary drinks at the bar, or anything.
We returned at 7:30, where the room was still not quite ready, and we were left lingering in the lobby for another half an hour, finally arriving in our room just after 8pm.
I went straight to the bar fridge for a relieving drink to find that 4 of the drinks had not been replaced from the previous guests. I rang front desk, so as to ensure these would not be billed to our account, but then felt paranoid about consuming anything fron the fridge in case what we had would simply be added to the missing products.
We may have used booking.com, but we still paid nearly $400 per night for this 'corner' room; thus we feel this level of service was just not good enough.
Naturally, the 'corner' we did receive faced the duller side of the city, but there were still good views to be had & we liked the room & bathroom. This, in addition to the helpful travel advice offered by the concierge downstairs during our 3 night stay, saved the review from the ignominious 1-star insult.
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