Category Archives for Hotels.
One of my readers ran into trouble checking into a hotel, and the hotel wouldn’t give him a refund either, so he took a guerilla approach and won. He calls the tactic “Protester-style.”
The hotel keeps guest vehicle keys in a safe, but it seems to be one of those cheap consumer-style safes you might buy from an office supply store, because it runs on a battery and the battery died. It likely also has a master key, but that wasn’t available. As a result, no guest could get their vehicle.
You should not actually stay at the Rio. You should check in there midweek when there’s a great rate when you’re staying in Las Vegas anyway, in order to earn elite night credit, but from all the feedback on this hotel you probably want to actually spend the night somewhere else. Even guests who feel the rooms themselves are fine tend not to enjoy strolling through the property to and from those rooms it seems.
The offer may be somewhat niche, but it also looks pretty strong on first blush, so seems worth flagging for the several of you that will benefit.
It appears at one point to have been – at least in part – a money-laundering operation, and pocketed more in insurance damage claims than the hotel was worth. And then they invested very little of that back into the property. Still, renovations were supposed to be completed a year ago. So how are things going?
Hyatt Studios rooms should be smaller than Hyatt House, and grab ‘n go breakfast rather than hot buffets. Rooms get serviced once per week. The good news is that Hyatt hasn’t gone the Marriott route of offering less than one elite night credit per night at their low-end brands, so at least slogging it out here will help requalify for status.
Marriott has the toughest criteria for a published, top tier status. Bonvoy Ambassador requires 100 nights in their hotels and minimum spend of $23,000. Or does it?
There are plenty of ways to earn hotel status besides spending 30, 50, 60 or more nights in a hotel. And there are plenty of ways to do it without getting a new premium credit card, either.
A guest checked into the Wyndham New Yorker Hotel in Manhattan in 2018. He wouldn’t leave, and keeps getting the hotel’s deed transferred into the name of a non-profit he created. He’s tried to take possession of the hotel’s bank accounts and even gone to its lenders to borrow against the property. And the city’s administration and courts even, in part, backed him up.
They’re making changes so that owners don’t have to spend as much, but they’ve reassured investors that this won’t come out of their end at corporate. That means coming out of the guest experience. And they’re cutting costs across their own operation, too. I don’t see Marriott getting better for guests in 2025.
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 »
