Oct. 2, 2003 - Hotel spies could be anywhere, so never let the phone ring four times.

That's the rule at the new Four Seasons Miami, which opened Wednesday determined to win the elusive five-star ranking that has so far eluded South Florida's finest hotels.

Incognito travel critics for ExxonMobil bestow the coveted accolade, measuring places they visit against hundreds of criteria they consider essential for a top-flight hotel -- including prompt service on the telephone. In turn, luxury chains like Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton produce their own protocols to match those standards, along with some to best the competition.

So socks at the Four Seasons come back from the laundry tied in ribbon. Sheets are not tucked at the foot of the bed, they're folded. And waiters offer newspapers to diners eating alone.

"There's thousands of opportunities to leave a guest with a memorable impression, or absolutely destroy what you're trying to do," said Ignacio Gomez-Tobar, general manager of the Four Seasons Hotel Miami.

The detailed codes of conduct (Four Seasons workers may have mustaches, but not beards) emerged as gospel in top luxury hotels during the 1990s as the chains expanded rapidly into other markets, said PricewaterhouseCoopers hotel analyst Scott Berman. The growing roster of Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton outposts carried more risk of cheapening the brands with subpar service, so headquarters pushed to standardize hotel operations.

Flubs in service are particularly damaging during a secret visit by ExxonMobil or AAA, which bestows five diamonds on its favorite hotels. Last year the auto club named the Mandarin Oriental on Brickell Key South Florida's only five-diamond location, and the Ritz-Carlton in Coconut Grove is expected to win five diamonds when the new AAA ratings come out next month.

But the more discriminating Mobil guide has yet to grant a fifth star to a hotel here since downgrading the Wyndham Grand Bay nine years ago.

"If you were to walk into this hotel and ask any employee what award are you working toward, they will tell you the five stars," said Mandarin General Manager Jorge Gonzalez.

The five-star race is a novelty for Miami, which lacked high-caliber hotels until the Mandarin opened in 2000.

Ritz-Carltons in Coconut Grove and Key Biscayne followed, and a third is slated to open soon in Miami Beach. The Four Season's debut in the midst of anemic business travel and weak revenues (the Toronto-based company lost $1.3 million in the past quarter) has prompted worries of a glut of high-priced hotel rooms for Miami.

A five-star ranking would give a hotel the chance to distance itself from the competition, but the title carries particularly high stakes for the Miami Four Seasons.

The $325-a-night hotel occupies one of the region's priciest condominium towers, a 70-story building with the best apartments selling for more than $6 million. Developer Millennium Partners hired Four Seasons to run its hotel and has justified the top-dollar condo prices with the promise of five-star services.

"We really need to be the best hotel in the market," Millennium executive Brian Collins said.

Gomez-Tobar said the Four Seasons standards exist primarily to please guests and preserve the Four Seasons reputation. But a second-tier ranking of four diamonds "could be a complete disaster," he said. "We would have failed ourselves miserably."

Gomez and his staff interviewed about 6,000 people to fill 400 slots for the 221-room hotel and has spent the last month training them.

Desk clerks were taught to act natural on the telephone, saying "Thank you" instead of "It's my pleasure" -- a no-no, according to training materials, for being a Ritz-Carlton catchphrase.

Waiters practiced to get breakfast to the table within 15 minutes and deliver lunch checks unsolicited. Desk clerks were drilled in arranging refreshments for business meetings and offering coffee to guests weary from a red-eye flight from South America.

"It's intense and a little scary," bartender Angela Alfaro said of the training.

Knowledgeable staff is a five-star benchmark, and the former Holiday Inn barkeep said she was surprised at how much schooling the Four Seasons required on the obscure details of the hotel.

How many bartenders "know what company sells your tea?" she asked. "Well, we do."

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(c) 2003, The Miami Herald. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. XOM, FS, MAR, IHG,