Category Archives for Hotels.
Thomspon San Antonio Riverwalk is staging bathroom soap and lotion where guests expect complimentary amenities, even though using them can trigger extra charges. That’s a textbook hotel dark pattern: make something look free, hide the price list, and count on guests not noticing until it’s too late and they’re stuck.
Capital One Shopping is showing that Bonvoy elites often get smaller rebates than nonmembers and base members booking the same chain. Marriott is willing to pay more to acquire a guest it does not think it already owns, while elite members are treated as captured customers who can be rewarded less at the point of sale.
Hotels are using climate and food-waste goals to justify smaller breakfast buffets, fewer options, and more “efficient” service — but the payoff for owners is lower food and labor costs. Guests may hear talk about sustainability, while what they actually notice is less on the plate and less on the buffet line.
A two-bedroom beach condo in St. Maarten can be had for just 15,000 points a night — or under $100 if you buy the points on sale — which is the kind of value that makes even a pretty uninspiring currency suddenly worth paying attention to.
A Black Ohio man says a Marriott hotel canceled the room he booked for his family on Super Bowl Sunday, then told him “You people” were not allowed to stay there and called police when he challenged the decision. The new federal civil rights lawsuit turns a viral hotel dispute into something much worse for Marriott: not just a claimed no-locals policy, but an allegation that geography was used as a cover for explicit racial discrimination.
Hyatt is quietly surveying some of the biggest changes elites have seen in 10 years, including the idea of a new elite tier above Globalist and turning some current perks into one-stay rewards instead of benefits you enjoy on each stay. The survey also raises the possibility of premium suite upgrades even as they pursue cost cuts in the program.
A dad sprinting from lounger to lounger to claim pool chairs for his family has become a kind of folk hero of the resort vacation — because too many hotels now make “relaxation” feel like a competitive sport. At some properties, guests line up before dawn, race to the pool when gates open, or even sleep overnight on beach chairs just to secure a spot for the day. That is exactly why I try to avoid what I think of as ‘resort factories.’ Once a vacation requires early alarms, towel strategy, and a run for scarce lounge chairs, the hotel has already failed at the basic job of making guests feel at ease. If you have to get down to the beach or pool before 8 a.m. to have any hope of getting a chair,…
Hotel breakfast is supposed to be a perk for paying guests, but in many properties it appears to be operating on little more than the honor system. Social media videos showing people walking into hotels, grabbing the free breakfast, and leaving without ever checking in are getting millions of views.
Marriott just made its free night certificates easier to use by letting Bonvoy members add up to 25,000 points instead of 15,000. That sounds like a win — and it is more flexible — but it also says something less flattering: hotel redemption prices have climbed so much that you now need extra points to book many of the same stays these certificates used to cover on their own.
Grand Hyatt DFW rooms have a small screen on the door that shows the hallway through a camera, replacing the old-school peephole. It’s a genuinely better setup—wider view, easier for guests who can’t lean into a peephole, and it eliminates peephole “reversing”—but it’s also why most hotels skip it: batteries, upkeep, and one more piece of hardware that can fail.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
