Category Archives for Hotels.
Tesla Sentry Mode caught a Hilton guest throwing something onto another guest’s car in the hotel parking lot. The hotel’s response, according to the Tesla owner, was to shrug it off as “half & half creamer” — which rather misses the point.
First the Hyatt room was hot, dirty and broken. Then the replacement room was already occupied. The third room finally had working air conditioning — but morning sunlight revealed the kind of stained bedding no guest should ever have slept on.
Hotel payment scams are getting harder to spot because fraudsters may already know your real reservation details. Scammers impersonating hotel staff are demanding payment through Zelle, PayPal, Venmo or bank transfer — and the messages can look legitimate because they reference actual stays, events, names and booking information.
The Sheraton at Amsterdam Schiphol did not catch fire — just its giant illuminated logo did, sending burning pieces falling from the roof and forcing about 380 guests out in the middle of the night. They were evacuated to the nearby Hilton, which is almost too perfect for a Sheraton brand metaphor: the sign still lights up the sky, but the energy behind it has burned out.
A New York hotel guest says kids pulled a fire alarm, banged on doors yelling “fire,” and sprayed people with fire extinguishers when they opened up. They report that the fire department says this is happening citywide. Even if it’s rare, treat an alarm seriously, but do not open your hotel room door blindly.
Hotels keep building bathrooms with glass walls, barn doors, and almost no privacy because those rooms look bigger, brighter, and more luxurious in photos. The problem is not that hotels do not know guests hate this design — it is that marketing, perceived space, and cheaper construction keep winning over comfort.
Hyatt has now announced which hotels are changing award categories next month, at the same time its new award chart devaluation takes effect, and the combined impact is worse than most members realize. The category list alone looks bad, but the real damage shows up when you run the numbers and see how many supposed price drops barely lower the points cost at all.
A congressman turned a hotel room air-conditioning complaint into a bizarre political rant, blaming AOC and the Green New Deal after a motion sensor shut off the A/C while he slept. Every factual claim in it, from how Maryland entered the Union to where Ronald Acuña Jr. was born, was just wrong.
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.
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 »
