Category Archives for Hotels.
Heads of State rent out entire hotel floors for security reasons but several hotels now, at lowest-ever occupancy, are offering to rent out entire floors for people looking for Covid safety. That seems entirely unnecessary.
There haven’t been any documented cases of spread between rooms either in hotels or office buildings. The virus doesn’t spread through walls.
I’ve heard from a number of Marriott Bonvoy Platinum and Ambassador members who have shared that they aren’t getting upgraded like they’re used to. That seems surprising at first. With the hotel industry in an unprecedented crisis of low occupancy, an upgrade should be easier than ever to come by!
I asked Marriott about this, and a spokesperson confirmed that members aren’t being upgraded more frequently this year – but they’re also not having their requests denied more often either. Here’s what’s happening.
A “wild” police chase through the attic of a Michigan Days Inn ended when one of the fugitives got “tangled up in the piping system of the attic” and her co-conspirator “fell through the ceiling” and into the hotel’s pool.
A business traveler from Virginia checked into the Holiday Inn Express & Suites York in Pennsylvania and returned to room 217 drunk on Friday. He took out his 9 millimeter pistol. And he fired it in the room.
The bullet “went through the room of a sleeping man and an elevator lobby before nearly striking a woman in the parking lot.”
Between May 18 and July 15, Marriott ran their biggest-ever points purchase bonus offering 60% more points for the same money. Now they have brought this bonus back. It can be worthwhile for certain hotel redemptions – and also for laundering points into some obscure-yet-valuable airline frequent flyer progams.
A man had pled guilty to impersonating a law enforcement officer in order to get hotel discounts. He posed as a U.S. Marshal, and had a fake badge to show to prove his eligibility for a government rate.
He always paid in cash “and on more than one occasion told the desk clerk collecting the payment to wash her hands after handling the money as it was confiscated drug money he had received as bonuses for ‘busts’.”
In September a hotel guest was jailed for writing bad reviews of the Sea View Resort & Spa, Kah Change. American working in Thailand who wrote the review was arrested at his job and jailed over a defamation lawsuit filed by the property.
He spent a couple of nights in jail before being able to post a 100,000 Baht (~ US$3165) bail. He faced up to two years in prison if convicted.
Hotel breakfast is one of the most important elite benefits and something that’s considered standard, ironically, at most non-full service properties. But what happens when a guest expects to receive breakfast and doesn’t, either because of a change to the loyalty program or as a cost saving measure gussied up as ‘protecting guests and workers during Covid-19’?
The best part of this has to be the phone call from the Trump campaign advance team, dialing up the Four Seasons in Philadelphia. “Hello, Four Seasons, how can we help you?” “Do you have availability for an event at 11:30 a.m.?” “Yes, we have space available.” “We won’t need catering, would you be willing to do it for a flat $10,000.00?”
In the U.S. you generally check into a hotel, provide a credit card, and many guests don’t check out. It’s polite to let the hotel know you’re leaving so they can clean and turn over your room for the next guest as early as possible. However about the only selfish reason to check out usually is to make sure you get a copy of the bill.
In many parts of the world, including Asia, checking out is far more customary and can take a surprising amount of time. They’ll run your credit card again with you present and insist you sign before leaving.
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 »
