Category Archives for Hotels.
A man booked a room with someone else’s Marriott Bonvoy points. The member received the confirmation email from Marriott, contacted the police, and that man was arrested on the spot in Naples, Florida!
Assigned personal ambassadors will be reaching out to Ambassador members in June, as in the past assigned based on their language speaking preference and home time zone. Many former Ambassadors have returned, apparently, and Marriott will accept requests now to Ambassador Services to be matched the person previously assigned.
Marriott is going to make a major shift this month in how it displays prices on its website, and to its English language mobile app. The first and most prominent price for a hotel that Marriott displays will be the price inclusive of resort or destination fees so when you search the Marriott website you won’t be duped into thinking a hotel is cheaper than it is, only to see disclosure of a higher price at check-out.
Hyatt is acquiring Mr. and Mrs. Smith the booking platform and collection of over 1500 independent hotels. While this is not a brand, and they do not manage or own hotels, in some sense this roughly doubles Hyatt’s footprint with high end properties around the world. The deal is expected to close this quarter.
A hidden camera inside a power outlet in the bathroom of an Airbnb is going viral after a group of girls found it on a birthday trip. They were skeptical when one friend was paranoid about cameras in the home they’d rented, but they eventually searched and found that the camera facing the shower – a shower they’d all used.
A woman is suing the Hilton Dallas/Southlake Town Square after finding a camera inside the alarm clock at her bedside though it seems like it was placed there by a person who was pretending to be CEO of a nonexistent company, flew her into town for a job interview, checked her into the hotel under a fake name and provided her with the key. What?
The Hyatt Place Salt Lake City Airport charges a mandatory food and restaurant fee equal to 8.75% of your room rate. This is literally a fee for your free breakfast, and to pay for a restaurant that does not exist.
You should register, because it’s right in front of you and you won’t remember to do it later.
Even if you don’t think you’ll have Hilton stays during the promotion period, you might, and 2,000 or 4,000 points is better than not 2,000 or 4,000 points. You shouldn’t shift your choice of hotel chasing this promotion, but you should pick up the extra points for stays you’re going to make anyway.
Marriott made it harder and harder to use your points. Some readers thought they just wanted to make it difficult to use your points so that you wouldn’t but that isn’t actually true. The people at Marriott worried about fraud (especially after major data breaches at the chain) gained the upper hand over anyone that cared about the loyalty of their best customers trying to use their points.
The last thing I ever want when redeeming points for my wife’s travel, though, is worrying over whether or not she’ll be able to check in!
What qualifies as the ‘first stay’ during the promotion period matters since earning starts only with the second stay. If you had a long stay planned, indeed at one of the properties being extra-bonused, you might even want to mattress run a stay in advance of it to make that your second stay rather than your first.
But Hyatt quietly changed the date that first stays count…
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 »
