Hotels

Category Archives for Hotels.

Now Hilton is Being Sued Over Resort Fees, Too

by Gary Leff

hotel
Jul 24 2019

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.

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Watch Out for Non-Cancellable Hotel Rewards: Reader Got a Surprise $7000 Charge

by Gary Leff

Jul 20 2019

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.

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Chase Points Transfers are Earning IHG Rewards Club Status

by Gary Leff

hotel room
Jul 18 2019

I wouldn’t go transferring over 75,000 points to earn IHG’s top Spire Elite status, since the opportunity cost of those points is quite high. It could make sense to top off an account that has already earned quite a few points in order to get there. And you could use IHG’s status to status match to another hotel chain though bear in mind that Hyatt doesn’t currently match this way.

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Marriott Brings Back Your World Rewards, Extra Points Earning and Elite Recognition With Emirates

by Gary Leff

private airplane bar
Jul 15 2019

The recognition benefits here aren’t strong, what’s useful is 4 p.m. late checkout with Marriott and and additional points earning when spending money with the other partner.

What’s significant is to see the continued expansion (in this case return of) the model of rewarding and recognizing elites of another brand in order to get access to their customers, much as American and Hyatt are now doing with their partnership.

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Man Stayed at New York Hotel, Claimed To Own the Building – and a Court Agreed

by Gary Leff

new yorker hotel
Jul 14 2019

New York’s rent control laws are truly bizarre and now a man who checked into a hotel and as a result claimed to own the hotel has even managed to get a housing court to agree.

Fortunately the hotel in question, the in Hell’s Kitchen, has managed to get a judge to temporarily block the guest from representing himself to banks as the owner of the property — but still couldn’t get the man’s deed vacated and the judge even suggested that he may now have the right to occupy the room he reserved.

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Marriott’s CEO Defends Resort Fees, Says They’re Good For You

by Gary Leff

art installation
Jul 14 2019

Washington DC is suing Marriott over its resort fees. “Resort fees” are extra charges, on top of a room rate, that aren’t optional. In other words they’re part of the price of a room, but the hotel advertises a lower price instead. That’s on face deceptive.

Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson, who thinks you have to enter a passport number to make a reservation at Marriott.com (so their unprecedented data breach was just the result of saving information for your booking convenience) and who thinks problems with the Bonvoy program were just “noise around the edges” gave an interview where he defended the undefendable resort fee. Naturally he did so disingenuously.

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Tokyo Airport Hotel Now Offers a ‘Superior Cockpit Room’ With a Boeing 737 Simulator ($233/Night)

by Gary Leff

hotel room
Jul 10 2019

Forget the TWA Hotel as an avgeek’s paradise, the Haneda Excel Hotel Tokyu attached to terminal 2 at Tokyo Haneda airport has them beat, hands down.

The property has just introduced a “Superior Cockpit Room” which includes a full sized Boeing 737-800 flight simulator. And they offer one of the best deals anywhere for experiencing a sim.

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