Category Archives for Hotels.
Four years ago Hilton eliminated free breakfast as a benefit for Honors Gold and Diamond members at U.S properties. In its place they offer a small food and beverage credit that can be used at any time throughout the day.
Hyatt now offers live award availability – not just the price a hotel would cost if it’s available – in calendar format.
Last summer Hyatt acquired Standard International which includes Standard Hotels which began joining World of Hyatt in May but also included Bunkhouse Hotels – and a seven store coffee shop chain.
Seven Bunkhouse hotels have join dates now for World Of Hyatt, with the first starting today.
Marriott revealed several weeks ago that they were turning elite member upgrades over to artificial intelligence. This was designed to reduce the time hotels spend on the task, to save salary costs.
One Sheraton guest chronicles their Kafkesque quest to have the Sheraton Grand Seattle honor Marriott elite benefits. Traveler reports are that they’ve been out of compliance for years, and becoming even less customer friendly, which saddens me – because I used to much like this hotel.
Big busy chain hotels can often have long lines to check in – nothing like what you’ll find in Las Vegas, where guests can stand in line for hours – but interminable feeling after a long flight when you just want to get to your room.
Properties that are unwilling to fully staff their front desks have turned to technology. But one of the better benefits that many of the big hotel programs offer is the elite check-in line.
One guest relays, “apparently the pool wasn’t worth fixing after it turned green and the hand soap is in a takeout sauce container.”
While checked into a Dubai hotel, British travel vlogger Miles Routledge (who goes by “Lord Miles”) noticed his AirPods were gone. He immediately put them into Lost Mode, enabling remote location pings and an alert tone each time the buds came online.
Marriott hotels decide whether to honor Bonvoy elite benefits. If they choose not to, you can complain to Marriott. And usually the most they’ll do is refer you to the hotel, who will tell you to pound sand. One guest wasn’t going to accept that.
I’ve stayed at the Westin Arlington in the D.C. suburbs dozens of times over the years. It’s close to my office there. And the way this franchise treats guests is indicative, I think, of the larger problem with Marriott:.
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 »
