Category Archives for Hotels.
Two and a half years ago Hilton reported 60 million members. Then at the beginning of 2018 they reported 70 million. Now they say they are up to 94 million Honors members.
Hilton was the first to aggressively advertise ‘member rates’ which are small room discounts that require you to join the loyalty program. Unsurprisingly that’s just what guests do. And since the number of members has gone up recently, driven by this savings, these are ‘engaged’ members with recent Hilton activity.
When you ‘make a green choice’ to let hotels save money on housekeeping, at least they’ll usually give you points so you can share in the savings (but not at the Hyatt Regency Seattle).
Marriott revealed that wall mounted toiletries save a couple thousand dollars per hotel each year. That’s a big savings across all of their managed North American properties who are making the switch from individual bottles.
As hotels look to cut costs, some cut back on daily housekeeping while others eschew room service carts and trays for brown paper sacks.
It turns out though that room service for dogs and cats is on the upswing.
A video going viral on social media shows a family caught by their hotel in Bali with items in their luggage stolen from the hotel. The family got into an argument with hotel staff, and the property demanded they open their bags for inspection. They were caught with stolen items from their room. One stolen piece after another gets revealed.
A former Starwood GM reports the theft of a grand piano from his lobby. Some guests walk out with the TV from their room. Another GM reports a guest unscrewing the room number off their door for a souvenir.
Washington DC is suing Marriott over deceptive resort fees.
In some sense it was strange to go after just Marriott whose practices are no worse than the rest of the industry. It turns out that while the attorneys generals of all 50 states and the District of Columbia were investigating resort fees, they had broken out the work and D.C. was directly involved with investigating Marriott. Now that D.C. broke away from the group and filed a case on its own, it’s not surprising to see additional defections.
Marriott, like some other hotel chains, refused to serve as detention centers to temporarily house people picked up in Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
Yet Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson has been clear that the chain shouldn’t be in the business of vetting the messages of each group that books a meeting.
This one Hyatt redemption category change – even though the move is not in members’ favor – speaks volumes in favor of Hyatt. In the meantime you may want to book this one amazing value property for future stays quickly.
A reader contacted me several weeks ago about a fairly traumatic situation. She had booked an award stay over the phone at the Andaz Papagayo in Costa Rica for the end of December. She made the reservation by phone nearly a year in advance. Then in May she figured out she couldn’t make the trip work, so she cancelled the booking. A month later she discovered a $7000 charge on her credit card from the property.
While we think of most award reservations as fully cancellable, in fact awards usually carry the same cancel rules as paid rates. So if standard paid rates at a property come with a 60 day cancellation policy, not uncommon for remote resorts during peak season, award stays may also. I do not recall ever seeing an award stay that wasn’t cancellable at all booked 11 months in advance.
Like Hilton, now that IHG no longer tells you how much hotels should cost they aren’t telling you when they raise prices or even institute new maximum prices that are 50% higher than previous maximum prices. That’s not good for members.
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 »
