Category Archives for Hotels.
He paid 63,000 points for a stay at The Grand Victoria Hotel in Lake Como. His father passed away, and the funeral conflicts with this stay. So he can’t go, and he’s been charged $5,500.
That’s how Hyatt’s (and Marriott’s) rule works. It’s also unacceptable. Most people assume that they’ll lose the points, not the cash, but that isn’t the rule!
They say that most crimes are committed by a very small number of people. Crack down on the super-offenders and you make an outsized difference in quality of life.
This past Saturday a “’trust fund baby’ from Australia” had been partying at Encore’s Beach Club. He demanded at the Wynn nightclub open an hour early for him, but the manager of XS personally declined this request. It’s not something they can do without any advance notice. This is someone who cares deeply about the party.
So he dropped 200 grand at the Resorts World night club, which let him troll the manager of Wynn’s spot by posting offensive messages to the side of the building.
Hilton has communicated upcoming changes to housekeeping, bathroom towels, bedside power outlets and night lights to hotel owners in the Americas, which they say are changes that “will have the biggest impact on guest satisfaction” while at the same time “being mindful” of property owner margins.
According to an internal communication reviewed by View From The Wing, Hilton hotels must be “clean everywhere and offer a hot breakfast, a great shower experience and a few reliable and friendly touches.”
A buffet actually interested in preventing spread of germs would make single-use tongs available to each guest. Use the tongs, deposit them for disinfecting once you’ve served yourself. But the goal isn’t preventing spread of germs, it’s conforming to (1) health codes, and (2) social convention.
You’re simply not going to get a quality night sleep on a mattress that’s been used every night, by different people, for over ten years. They’ll develop bumps and pockets, and guests will complain – no matter how many times mattresses are flipped and rotated (and cleaned, though this often happens just a couple of times per year). Some hotels even keep using ripped and soiled mattresses, but an upper upscale property should not.
An ex-hotel manager tells guests they should put away their toothbrushes – don’t leave them out in the bathroom – because housekeepers may mess with them.
Maybe the housekeeper is in a bad mood, thinks the guest is rude, or isn’t tipping. The manager says that housekeepers may “clean certain areas in bathrooms with a guest’s toothbrush that you don’t want to have near your mouth.”
Many hotel chains have moved from single use plastic toiletries to bulk wall-mounted toiletries. They say it’s for the environment, but it isn’t. If they just cared about reducing plastic, they’d move to single use biodegradable packaging. Instead these refillable bottles are cheaper.
There are (3) basic problems with this for the guest.
He’d made a nonrefundable booking using Chase points to attend a wedding at what seemed like “the cheapest hotel from a reliable..brand” and found “an active construction site” with rooms covered “in plastic wrap,” constant drilling and a closed restaurant – none of which was disclosed on the property’s website. And oh that toilet.
Last month a man that wasn’t a guest entered the Ritz-Carlton Sarasota and planted himself in the hot tub. He wouldn’t leave. When police responded to a trespassing complaint from management, the man ranted about what had become of his beloved Starwood Preferred Guest program and his lifetime elite status, as captured on body cam video.
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 »
