Category Archives for Hotels.
All out of town NHL teams have been staying at the Fairmont San Jose when visiting the San Jose Sharks. But it’s the NHL West Division’s Vegas Golden Knights who drew the short end of the Fairmont straw on Friday when the Fairmont closed down without warning and kicked everyone off the property: “The Golden Knights didn’t request an early checkout from their hotel in San Jose, California. They were given one anyway.”
I find that researching trips now is different than it used to be. I can’t just rely on hotels that I know by reputation, or by brand. I need to read recent guest reviews to see if they’re actually offering housekeeping; whether they answer the phone for requests; what amenities are actually available on property; the extent to which promised cleaning happens, rules like distancing and masking are enforced; how elite benefits are being honored, if at all.
Several state attorneys general were investigating hotel resort fees as a deceptive practice. That process has gone nowhere. Two years ago Washington, D.C. broke ranks and sued Marriott.
Marriott intends to take the case to trial and D.C. is looking for consumers as witnesses.
The Hilton Austin is owned by the City of Austin. Or, technically, by a separate entity created by the city. The city appoints the company’s board, and can amend its bylaws. But because it is a ‘private’ entity owned by the city, it is able to apply for a federal Paycheck Protection Loan to cover payroll costs it is going to be incurring anyway. Cities themselves cannot apply for these forgivable loans.
When applying for the PPP loan was discussed at the City Council meeting, other dirty laundry about the Austin Hilton got aired.
Hotels host meetings and events, and generally do not carefully vet the messages that will be shared or the people who will gather at those meetings to make sure they’re consistent with the values of their median customer, consistent with the values of their most vocal customers, or consistent with the values of twitter.
From time to time that becomes a problem, and seemingly becomes a problem for Hyatt (and, oddly, for the Hyatt Regency Orlando) relatively often.
The Hyatt Regency Boston has apparently become notorious as a hub for prostitution with “at least 70 incidents involving sex for pay at the hotel over the past six months” according to the Boston police department in a licensing hearing.
In order to minimize future incidents they’ve hired the security director away from the Sheraton Boston and added a second night guard to their staff.
Hyatt’s new promotion will offer 2000 points every two nights stayed March 1 through June 15 (2500 points for Hyatt co-brand credit card customers) plus a free category 1-4 night after 10 nights stayed during the promotion period.
The Hyatt Regency Sonoma Wine Country has been playing games with free room night award availability. Most of the time you’ve been able to use Hyatt points for free nights there. However there’s a trick they’ve been using at peak times, like Memorial Day Weekend, to stop people from redeeming. They’ve been pulling a fast one on program members – and Hyatt. Fortunately after I pinged someone at Hyatt, they cracked down in less than 24 hours.
The five star Grand Josun resort in Jeju, South Korea is apologizing for a ‘mistake’ that allowed honeymooners to be seen honeymoooning in their sauna.
The sauna’s windows are coated to prevent seeing in during the day, but that doesn’t prevent people inside from being in full view at night – so blinds are supposed to come down when it’s dark. But they didn’t – and guests didn’t know this needed to happen.
I was sad to learn of the passing of Marriott’s long-time CEO Arne Sorenson, the first non-Marriott to hold the post. My sympathies go out to his family who lost him to pancreatic cancer way too early at 62. I wasn’t going to write about it because the news is well-covered. My reactions though center largely around what’s been said about him since his untimely passing.
His public legacy, I think, is more complicated than the tributes I’ve seen generally recognize. And that flows naturally from the role he filled at the helm of a global business in a very political industry.
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 »
