Category Archives for Hotels.
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.
I checked into the hotel and found it overrun with teenage sports teams. There were adults out front tailgating, and downing alcohol from full sized bottles.
There was one person working the desk and a line of people. When it was my turn I learned that they’d screwed up.
The general manager of a premium Los Angeles-area chain hotel writes to me, explaining why his hotel will not offer top tier elites to suites even though the chain requires them to do so.
A reader from Montana got a new drivers license. They were given a paper printout as a temporary license, and the state takes a couple of weeks to send out plastic ones. His passport is out of his hands, getting renewed in the long priority queue at the State Department. Fortunately you can fly domestically without ID and without too much difficulty.
Away from home, he turned up at the hotel he’d booked using the American Airlines Rocketmiles site on a prepaid rate for the Loyalty Points. But they would not check him in.
The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs is an expansive luxury resort known as a top conference destination. One man stayed there on his own, for ten months, and the hotel has filed suit because they say he never paid for a single night. They’re trying to collect on a $185,000 bill. That’s over $600 per night, inclusive of tax.
I never ask for very much and I rarely ever complain. I certainly never ask for special treatment. I would rather experience hotels the same way everyone else does, at least the way other frequent travelers earning elite status do.
I am never rude to hospitality staff. When they’re having a bad day, I try to empathize and joke with them about it. I’m far more self-effacing than demanding. So I’ve never experienced this before.
Did you know that Hilton specifically says that 44% of its brands do not have to upgrade elite members at all?
Since I wrote about “parking recapture fees” readers have been sharing other hotels that do this. One sent me a folio from the Hilton Garden Inn Orlando at SeaWorld with a $2.13 charge. Another sent me a folio from Hampton Inn Philadelphia/King Of Prussia (Valley Forge) showing a $3.87 parking recapture fee.
A guest at the DoubleTree by Hilton Los Angeles – Norwalk says that she woke up from a nap to find an employee “standing at the foot of [her] bed.” She screamed and he offered the excuse, “I called, but you didn’t answer your phone.”
She reports that she called the hotel six times asking to speak to a manager but no one called her back. She called the police.
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 »
