Category Archives for Hotels.
A great staycation can be getting a room at a local resort and enjoying everything they have on property, but you can do this without even booking the room. Many resorts offer day passes, and some people go without buying the pass. And it can make a great place to kill time before the airport, especially if you don’t have guaranteed late checkout where you’re staying.
The Thompson Hotel Denver is a recent-build property owned by T2 Hospitality. Like many lifestyle hotels, they don’t just rely on room revenue to earn a profit. They lean heavily into food and beverage. And this hotel has a unique strategy for bumping up their revenue – by 3%.
As this charge slip from the hotel’s bar shows, they add an automatic 20% surcharge and pocket 3% of it for themselves. You’re not just required to tip the servers, you’re also required to tip the owners.
A housekeeper at MGM’s Vdara in Las Vegas is accused of stealing more than $1 million in jewelry from a guest room consisting of “two Rolex watches, an Audemars Piguet watch, a Cartier watch, seven diamond Cuban link chains, a couple of bracelets and a gold ring.”
Here’s the story of tweedle dee and tweedle dumber.
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.
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 »
