Category Archives for Hotels.
The Le Meridien and Sheraton in Charlotte are in the same complex. It’s increasingly common for a large hotel to be sold as more than one brand, to appeal to different types of travelers or to people interested in different brands.
However right now it appears that the two hotels are being sold as one. According to reader reports only the Le Meridien is open and people reserving the Sheraton are getting moved to the Le Meridien.
Hilton will be counting ‘double elite qualifying nights’ towards completing a Diamond status challenge. As a result it takes only 9 nights with Hilton to earn top tier elite with a status challenge starting September 8.
U.S. hotel occupancy for the week of August 9-15 hit 50.2%, the first time it’s been over 50% since mid-March. In a normal year 50% occupancy is what hotels look like the at the beginning of the year, after the holidays but before business travel starts back in earnest.
The bad news for hotels though is that occupancy usually peaks in August and then begins to decline, with a brief interruption, but largely for the rest of the year.
A brawl broke out at the Embassy Suites Atlanta Galleria after a dispute between a guest and a front desk associate. Other guests in the lobby naturally caught it on video… rather than helping to restrain the combatants.
While the argument that precipitated the fight wasn’t recorded, we can see that the hotel front desk agent is wearing a mask at the end– and the guest is not.
I have a hard enough time keeping up with The Facebook. I like to argue so I’m more at home with Twitter. But this Tik Tok advice from a flight attendant has been viewed over 4 million times, and liked about a million times. Is there anything here we didn’t already know?
These tips are great as far as they go, but the best flight attendant hotel hack ever is making grilled cheese in your room with an iron.
Anthony Michael Hall was Rusty in National Lampoon’s Vacation. He starred in Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club and Weird Science – a John Hughes trifecta. When 2001’s Not Another Teen Movie sought to honor him, all the characters in high school ate at the Anthony Michael Dining Hall.
Now though he’s having to apologize for obnoxious behavior at the South Congress Hotel pool
Selena Rivera-Apodaca has been arrested for armed robbery after taking a man up to her room at the Hyatt Regency Boston. The two had met through a dating app, and she invited him to the hotel Tuesday morning. At around 11 a.m. they met in the lobby before making their way upstairs. They ‘spoke’ for half an hour before she “pulled out a taser and started to go through his pockets.”
In my own dating life this would never have happened.
A front desk security camera at a hotel in Brazil caught a beat down that occurred between a guest and a check-in agent Saturday night after the 24 year old reception agent insisted on taking the customer’s temperature as they entered the property.
The man, who apparently objected to contactless thermometers the way some airline passengers feel about masks, seemed as though he was going to walk away and leave. He comes back and hits the employee with a pedestal and threw hand sanitizer as well. That’s when the desk agent goes full on Bruce Lee in Fists of Fury on the customer.
Hotels need to work harder to please guests when they have empty rooms. Delivering less value than before is a recipe for lower rates and more empty rooms. Moving to a no housekeeping standard where it no longer makes sense to compensate guests for no housekeeping is the wrong equilibrium for recovery.
The practice, which dates to April, has mostly ended – but one Hyatt hotel in Seattle was found still asking guests to reach down deep and give extra money to the property’s owners just this week.
After being called out, the hotel is no longer asking guests for donations, but it’s still charging a resort fee without delivering any amenities so that is kind of the same really.
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 »
