Category Archives for Hotels.
Airbnb makes sense in towns where there aren’t suitable hotels. It makes sense to rent a full house for a large family or when traveling with a group of friend. But the current homesharing model is very broken, and as a result choosing Airbnb makes no sense for most stays.
The concerns I have with Airbnb, though, are hardly the only ones. Others have had far worse experiences.
You can earn 1000 bonus American AAdvantage miles per stay of two nights or more across 10 U.S. cities between July 5 and September 5, 2022.
This isn’t choosing ‘miles or points’ this is on top of the Hyatt points you’ll earn And it stacks on top of Hyatt’s existing partnership with American where American elites earn 1 AAdvantage mile per dollar spent with Hyatt and Hyatt elites earn 1 Hyatt point per dollar spent on American flights
With 624 hotels in total, this is just over $1 million per property (abstracting away from real estate). That actually seems low for the business, even though it includes few hard assets.
This seems like a real miss for Hyatt. Though the hotels are more downmarket than Hyatts overall, it would have given them some reach outside of the larger metro areas in the U.S. where they’re strong.
A reader explains why hotel guests are unreasonable, and we should be more sympathetic to hotels that are cutting services, containing costs, as they try to ‘make up’ money they lost during the pandemic. Here’s why that’s exactly backwards.
Hilton’s CEO wants guests to reuse their towels. He doesn’t think hotels should have to provide things better than what people have at home. He’s playing to owners, chasing fees, but diluting his brand – which will limit the ability to collect fees over time.
Hotels have tried to lock in the savings of not cleaning rooms during stays, even as guests have returned. So we’ve seen many hotels move away from daily housekeeping on a permanent basis, though some still let guests request housekeeping during their stay.
I checked in with the major hotel chains on their housekeeping policies. While there’s sometimes a gap between the policies and pronouncements of a chain and on-the-ground reality, Hyatt seems to be doing the most to require hotels to provide housekeeping. Even where chains say it’s supposed to be an option, it may not be.
Addressing one of the real frictions, or barriers to tipping, we’re also seeing tipping via QR code paired with a clever psychological trick thanks to Holiday Inn.
You can read full benefit details here. Now that benefits are (mostly) live at hotels we’ll start to see how compliant properties are and how the new program works in practice. Regardless, there’s only improvements here in terms of benefits, addressing what has been the key weakness in the IHG program.
Marriott’s Edition brand doesn’t have to provide elite members with breakfast. However all Marriott hotels have to provide guests staying on points the same benefits as guests on paid rates.
The Edition in Bodrum, Turkey is a Bonvoy member favorite. It’s also one of the hotels where awards were devalued the most when Marriott went to dynamic pricing.
There are some very cool packages but whether they make sense comes down to pricing. A limited quantity offer for a limited period promoted as a monthly event could certainly be good.
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 »
