Category Archives for Hotels.
A woman reports in multiple places online that last Thursday she was staying one night in a major city at a chain hotel. She showered, put her towel on the rack, and was “standing in the middle of the room completely naked, [when] another guest opens the door suddenly.”
What happened next is what’s really striking. The man didn’t leave. Instead, he started filming her.
With all the fees that hotels you’d think there’s nothing left to unbundle. However Hyatt’s Destination Residences Mauna Lani Point resort in Waimea has come up with a creative new fee I haven’t seen before.
In a move sure to impress Monsieur Thénardier himself, the hotel actually charges guests for damage they haven’t even done to the room yet through a mandatory $79 damage waiver fee on each booking.
there’s good value here. It presaged the Hyatt-SLH partnership, and offers the opportunity to credit cheap Las Vegas midweek stays for elite status. I also hope this promotion drives a lot of business to MGM since I’ve heard rumblings out of MGM that they’ve been somewhat ambivalent about the partnership.
Of course Hyatt will be gaining a bigger foothold in Vegas in its own right, bringing multiple brands to prime real estate as part of the renovation and rebranding of the old 2500-room Rio.
I’d booked numerous Starwood Preferred Guest stays where 5th night free covered the full premium room. As in so many things, Marriott doesn’t do this. That’s good to know when budgeting your points stays. And when you see a free night that isn’t free, now you’ll know why.
In one of the sketchier things I’ve seen out of hotels in the United States, the owner of 27 hotels in northern lower Michigan takes reservations for their more expensive properties, and walks guests to the cheaper ones. They also own a deceptive website purporting to be the area’s “Chamber of Tourism,” recommending only their own hotels.
Last fall I found several Marriott hotels sell their rooms for less on Airbnb than at Marriott.com. Marriott isn’t ok with this and cracked down on the specific properties I noted, but the practice continues and one guest even managed a successful best rate guarantee against an Airbnb listing.
Hyatt’s Hôtel du Louvre in Paris all of a sudden stopped offering free night awards on points. Searching for stays, it appears the King Standard Room was gone entirely, and all rooms at the hotel that were for sale came with views. And those rooms aren’t standard rooms eligible for redemption. I reached out to Hyatt to see what was going on, and whether the hotel was compliant with Hyatt’s rules since I wasn’t able to find a single free night award in the coming year. Up until the end of May awards were easy to come by. Hyatt shares that the issue is the hotel’s renovation, specifically affecting the base level rooms at the hotel. [S]tandard rooms are more limited right now as many have been removed from inventory during some external renovations to…
There’s a one day opportunity to get better value out of Radisson Americas points with a 25% rebate on redemptions made on Friday, June 23. The chain’s top properties are available for a net of 37,500 points per night under this offer.
While the lack of daily housekeeping means that trash piles up in rooms and hallways, that it’s tougher to clean rooms between guests since the rooms become dirtier, and thus it’s more likely new guests receive dirty accommodations, as long as hotels meet basic cleanliness standards it’s hard to see making daily housekeeping a law.
Nonetheless do not ever believe a hotel chain or lobbying association when they say their practices are intended to benefit the environment. And here remember that the biggest advance in the history of public health that extends lifespans is cleanliness.
When the police get involve after threats of violence over accommodations reviews that may be a one-off, rather than representative of the platform. But it’s also a reminder that you don’t really know whom you’re renting from – or to.
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 »
