Category Archives for Hotels.
The brand new St. Regis Chicago wasn’t offering Marriott Bonvoy Platinum members breakfast as they’re required to. They claimed that their restaurant was operated by a third party, and this got them out of the obligation. This all was addressed quickly, in just a couple of days.
In the meantime, however, there were a flood of consumer reviews of the property on TripAdvisor – most of which were very bad (and likely fake).
Both chains are more booking platforms than hoteliers, since they not only don’t own hotels they generally don’t run them either, preferring to franchise. Choice currently has over 7,000 properties and Wyndham over 9,000.
Hilton has announced a new extended stay hotel brand that’s supposed to resemble an apartment for guests planning visits of at least 20 days. They’re announcing it even before they have a name. For now, it’s Project H3.
I’ve read the release and have no idea how their concept is different, other than a lobby that “allows sight lines from the front desk to fitness, laundry, and a simple retail market” and communal grills and fire pit.
The new St. Regis Chicago thought it found an ‘elite breakfast loophole’ allowing them to avoid providing breakfast to Marriott Bonvoy Platinum members and above. But they didn’t.
Between homeless and refugees an increasing number of low-end properties are being used to house people by the city – and even relatively better hotels are being converted for this purpose. The 50% number may not be right, but the magnitude of the challenge – financial, and opportunity cost – is real.
What becomes an even worse practice is charging a 5% add-on service fee for workers and not actually giving the money to those workers which is what the Los Angeles City Attorney suggests seems to be happening at Hyatt’s Thompson and tommie Hollywood hotels.
The iconic Park Hyatt Tokyo, location for the Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson film Lost In Translation, is a favorite among World of Hyatt members. Globalist breakfast here is incredible, both in-restaurant and through allowable room service. And standard suites which are eligible for upgrade are lovely.
However it has become generally no longer possible to redeem points at this hotel.
The problem for hotels with dropping daily housekeeping is that they’re eliminating the things that make them different than an Airbnb and Airbnb has been their primary competitive threat. At some properties it also just cashes out as gross.
Marriott’s AC Hotel in Downtown Minneapolis tells guests just leave your trash in the hall.
Hotels can make deals to undercut the prices available on a chain’s website… as long as those rates aren’t available to the general public (and therefore also not eligible for use against that chain’s best rate guarantee).
The Hyatt Centric Sacramento adds $17.43 per night for an “historical commitment fee.” This fee does not cover anything related to historic preservation. It’s just a resort fee, re-named, so that it sounds more reasonable and so they can charge Hyatt elite members who would otherwise be exempt from this fee.
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 »
