Hotels

Category Archives for Hotels.

The Great ‘Book Direct’ and Hotel ‘Best Rate Guarantee’ Scam

Sep 22 2019

The truth is that hotels do regularly sell rooms cheaper through third parties than they do on their own website, they just work really hard to disguise it and to gate off consumers from accessing those cheaper rates – because they want to fill incremental rooms that would go unsold, but without undercutting the prices they can book the rest of their rooms at.

Continue Reading »

Hotels Are So Scared of Airbnb They are Lobbying to Kill the Entire Internet

Sep 17 2019

Hotel industry lobby group the American Hotel and Lodging Association sponsored a push poll to support eliminating or undermining protections of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

As the lobby shop – which represents “9 of the 10 top U.S. hotel brands” including Marriott, Hyatt, IHG, and Hilton – explains, “Online web sites and social media platforms have claimed that CDA Section 230 gives them protection from any third-party user publishing information or content to their website.”

Continue Reading »

Marriott Peak Award Pricing is Live, But Some Hotels May Offer Lower Award Rates for a Few Hours

new york street
Sep 14 2019

Marriott tells me though that “it may take a few hours to fully update our servers” so there may still be hotels not yet showing peak pricing. And it’s still possible to book awards at those properties as they roll out the changes. I’m not saying to go look for a needle in a haystack, but some glitches and delays in raising prices may be out there.

Continue Reading »

Marriott IT Is Still the Gang That Can’t Shoot Straight

outside marriott hotel
Sep 10 2019

The internal e-mail address that Marriott is using to process claims is changing. The old one is set to expire. However the website hasn’t been updated to use the new e-mail address, and this generates a message to the customer. Oops.

Here’s hoping Marriott IT can update the web form before IT expires the old address, or else Best Rate Guarantee claims will go into the ether the way so many customer service requests did last fall after Marriott, Starwood, and Ritz-Carlton loyalty accounts got combined with the launch of the new program.

Continue Reading »

How Marriott Bonvoy Became Part of Getting the President’s Personal Assistant Fired

bonvoy
Aug 30 2019

he President’s personal assistant, Madeleine Westerhout, was fired on Thursday. On Friday the story came out that she had made comments at an off-the-record dinner with reporters August 17th hosted by deputy White House press secretary Hogan Gidley which got back to the White House.

Apparently Ms. Westerhout, after “a couple drinks and in an uncharacteristically unguarded moment,” made comments which – once reported back to the White House – made her continued employment untenable. That’s not the part of the story I’m interested in.

Continue Reading »

Offensive: Hotels.com Implementing a Fee to Redeem “Free” Hotel Nights

Aug 30 2019

You earn a Hotels.com free night after staying 10 nights, and that’s an effective 10% rebate on hotel stays. As a result Hotels.com offers a useful program for two types of people. It’s great for those who do not stay regularly enough to earn elite status in a loyalty program. It’s also good for those who don’t concentrate on a single chain.

That rebate will become worth a little bit less in three months.

Continue Reading »