Category Archives for Hotels.
Price aside (and price matters..) I’ll always pick the property connected to the terminal if there is one, followed by the most recently renovated hotel near the airport. Airport hotels get a lot of one night stays and see faster wear and tear than regular properties.
If a hotel in France advertises a gourmet experience, and they cannot deliver passable croissants, that is fraud and they should be held liable.
Every year for the past several years, Marriott has run a double elite nights offer along with bonus points. Here’s last year’s which was 1,000 bonus points per night and double elite qualifying nights on paid stays February 13 – April 29. They ran something similar in 2022 and 2023.
The Trump family stayed at St. Regis D.C. for the inauguration, based on video shared by President Trump’s granddaughter Kai who took on a much larger profile this past summer at the Republican Convention.
When a Hyatt property charges a destination fee that is not even disclosed during the booking process that’s especially egregious, and clearly illegal. If you don’t check your bill prior to check-out, you wouldn’t even know you were being charged more than the price you were quoted for the room.
Hotel loyalty programs like Marriott Bonvoy promise upgrades to their frequent guests, if rooms are available at check-in, but getting those upgrades can be tough. There are too many elites – anyone with their premium credit card is a Platinum – but hotels play games also.
Marriott appears to be testing a requirement that guests give up housekeeping during their stay in order to get the cheapest room rates.
The Line Hotel DC is housed in a historic neoclassical church building in Adams Morgan. It was originally built in the early 1900s as the First Church of Christ, Scientist. The property was launched 7 years ago, and has sister hotels in Austin, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Owners couldn’t make loan payments during the pandemic, and ceded control to their lender.
A hotel like this shouldn’t just be telling you ‘we won’t honor your stay for the dates booked, choose different dates’ and leaving it at that. While that may be their rhetorical starting point (they don’t want to show weakness and reveal that they are going to wind up doing much more), that likely isn’t what’s going to happen here.
Marriott Autograph Collection properties in Mexico seem to take the autograph part seriously, and love NDAs. The Royalton Splash Riviera Cancun reportedly required non-disclosure agreements by guests before “allowing medical assistance or letting them leave” the property over Christmas, after becoming ill over the holidays.
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 »
