Category Archives for Hotels.
Marriott reset member expectations a year ago about how upgrades work, changing the name so that an upgrade isn’t necessarily to a suite and giving out upgrades only closer to check-in. Well, they’re changing upgrades again!
Bellmen sometimes carry a doorstop or door wedge. It’s often made of rubber (but sometimes plastic) and is shaped like a small triangle or wedge. They place it in the door to hold it open while transporting bags. Sometimes room service staff carry these, too.
But what about a guest when they’re on their own? Self-wedging doors are brilliant, a tremendous convenience, and more hotels should emulate this.
Here’s what you get for spending $23,000 a year at Marriott hotels, in addition to benefits like occasional room upgrades and continental breakfast. The hotel chain has sent out end of year holiday gifts, and a reader shares that they received a lego puzzle set of a Marriott Design Hotels property in Iceland.
Despite making the booking directly with Marriott, submitting credit card information to guarantee the reservation, and receiving a confirmation email, the hotel reached out to demand separate payment. And it sure looks like phishing or a scam, like someone had gotten hold of new bookings and was trying to steal money.
A year ago Hyatt started testing online redemption of suite upgrades. That feature is now live, and it works for both suite upgrades and club access awards, through both the Hyatt.com website and through the Hyatt mobile app as part of the booking process.
This hotel does something a little bit differently – something I have never seen before. They ask guests to tip the front desk agent checking them in.
In order to offer their ‘membership’ rates that are exempt from rules requiring them to offer the same higher prices as hotel website direct rates, they have to charge for membership. That’s currently $49.95 per year. But View From The Wing readers can currently sign up using promo code VFTW and that fee is waived. This is lifetime free membership and you should jump on this while it’s available.
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.
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 »
