When you’re a frequent guest of a hotel chain, it’s common to receive a “thank you for being a Titanium Plutonium member” when you check into one of their properties. One guest didn’t get the ‘thank you for your loyalty’ and complained to the hotel’s management company.
As an employee, we’re suppose to thank yall for your status and loyalty. Do you guys get upset when you aren’t thanked?
I had a guest contact the management company of the property I work at because he wasn’t thanked for his loyalty!! THE MANAGEMENT COMPANY!
The employee was wrong – they didn’t follow the protocols they’d been given. But this seems like the least important thing that they can do for a guest?
I don’t care about being thanked. The interaction is usually perfunctory and awkward. I care about a hotel honoring elite benefits. I care about receiving an upgrade if possible, and having the way the hotel’s status benefits explained – such as what is the breakfast offering?
Missing a thank you might even be preferred.
- Honoring benefits is great, rendering the thank you is superfluous.
- Thank you without honoring benefits just underscores how disingenuous the thank you is.
The best way to meet the thanking obligation while focusing on the benefits is to do them together in the same statement,
- “Thank you so much for your loyalty as a [elite level]. We welcome you into our club lounge, where breakfast starts at 6:30 a.m. We have evening appetizers and drinks beginning at 5 p.m. as well. We’ve upgraded you to a river view room, and it would be my pleasure to extend 4 p.m. late check-out if you’d like?”
- “Thank you for being a [elite level] with us. Would you prefer X bonus points or the market item as your complimentary amenity today?”
Honestly I feel like there’s an inverse relationship between getting thanked for my loyalty and receiving the benefits promised by the loyalty program. Show me I’m appreciated by delivering as-expected, not by having someone that clearly doesn’t appreciate it (why would they?) forced to tell me that they do.
Agree completely – if someone is so “triggered” by not being thanked for their loyalty (like there really is any loyalty either way) they much lead a pretty sheltered life and I wouldn’t want to be them.
I don’t care for the thank you but it is a good barometer for whether the training and service level of the hotel employees are good or not so it’s definitely something I keep in mind. As you said the main thing is that I get my elite benefits. If I have to ask for my benefits as an elite member (know your benefits), then yea they are going to get dinged if I decide to write a review on a hotel.
Also to add since I’ve noticed this more often than not when staying at Marriott properties as a Titanium, if a property either allows the option of points or a free breakfast, market item, food voucher, etc. but at check-in they tell me they’ve “gone ahead and credit points to my account” without mentioning my alternatives (which I often find more valuable than an immaterial amount of points), that hotel will instantly get a failing grade from me from an elite recognition standpoint for being cheap and playing their elite members like they’re clueless on their benefits. There are numerous properties that I have to ask for the alternate option, I don’t know the economics but imagine that giving away points to its guests are the cheapest options for the hotels so I’m sure management at some properties are tellling their front desk folks not to be transparent about all the elite benefits that one is entitled to.
I disagree. There’s no relationship, inverse or otherwise. The human psyche compels us to deduce relationships where none exist. Low-IQ humans also struggle with holding two ideals to be true simultaneously; this observation gave rise to the edict of walking and chewing gum at the same time.
A good hotel should thank you for your loyalty while delivering the benefits you expect. Full stop. There is no mutual exclusivity.
Have you ever heard that people in the US Northeast are “kind but not nice” whereas most of the rest of the country is “nice but not kind”? That’s low-IQ nonsense in play. A person anywhere in the country can be (and many people–even northeasterners–are) kind and nice at the same time. It’s wild that we as a society are tolerant of those who can only do one.
I agree. The thank you is hollow and meaningless unless accompanied by tangible benefits. It’s like the companies with endless hold times who run a recording telling you every three minutes “we value your time”.
Better to stay at a nice reasonably priced Airbnb or good independent hotels then deal with these corporate style hotels and the people who tend to stay at them.
They attract the entitled look at me I am special type of crowd.
ANOTHER greasy American farang. Absolutely the most self absorbed, self centered farang in the known world.
Mid-grade brands tend to do the best. I stayed in two Hampton Inns this past week and both acknowledged my Diamond status while offering my choice of water/soda/snacks. The one where I didn’t take the shuttle asked me if I would be parking as there were reserved spaces.
Yeah, not much, but consistent and fulfills the recognition and benefits. I also feel like I get upgraded to the “& Suites” portion a whole lot more at this band of hotels. Or to one with a better view. Or the one Saturday I checked in at midnight where the desk said they’d put me in a room on the end with nobody next to me or above me. I think I prefer that to a larger room….
@NedsKid I generally agree. I’ve had good experiences at Marriott Fairfield properties in small towns and the middle of no-where. All they have to do is deliver a top floor room, a clean room, and have two or three Diet Pepsi bottles in the market that I can buy with the $10 voucher. Same for Holiday Inn Express. I find Holiday Inn Express is generally better than Holiday Inn. The overall experience at these brands is easier to deliver. But when you start getting to a full-service brand, it’s harder and harder for them to deliver. Cheap owner, bad management, lack of staff, bad kitchen, no amenities — whatever. So many more variables. Marriott, Sheraton, Westin, Hyatt Regency, Hilton, and Crowne Plaza all purport to be 4-star, full-service hotels. Many, if not most, of the properties are worse than a Holiday Inn Express or Fairfield.
I think there should be a first class action lawsuit with Marriott, I am gold elite and there are no thank yous from anyone from what I read from others! Loyalty, upgrades don’t mean nothing anymore! So all of you Elites get an attorney on this matter First class action now
Sure sounds like hotels should show transparency with points and other benefits at their hotels instead of lying straight to customers faces which is certainly bad for business
Thank you for your loyalty is so American and an sick one of how this phoniness is creeping into
Non US companies. If you’re polite and genuinely so ( unlike most Americans) you can simply say thanks
An employee supposed to do certain things getting dinged when not doing them sounds right. At least that is how things worked for me when I was working. Complaining about getting dinged sounds entitled to me as in I am entitled to do only part of my job and nobody is supposed to complain about the part that I didn’t do.
I don’t get offended if I’m not Thanked as an Elite member (Marriott Ambassador or Hilton Diamond) worldwide. However, I like when they do it because it also reminds the check-in agent that I am an Elite member and get elite benefits.
For example – I stayed at a Amsterdam Moxy hotel recently – no thank you at check-in – and no upgrade even though one night and app showed upgraded rooms available. So I asked if the room I was getting was an upgrade and she said no but I could pay to upgrade. I reminded her that I’m Ambassador and she froze. She looked in her computer and realized she forgot to thank me for loyalty and apologized, looked at availability and upgraded me….apologizing profusely as she did.
Mind you, I was not demanding – I simply asked nicely – unlike others who start shouting at the front desk telling them what they are entitled to.
Curiously, I normally get upgraded before checkin due to status. Although this reservation was made same day.
Sadly, post pandemic, hotels are scrambling to hire staff sometimes without proper training and often times Elite training goes by the wayside.
Sometimes it feels that not being upgraded seems like a “don’t thank you for being an elite member”
I went free agent a long time ago. None of this bothers me anymore. At one point or another been top tier on Hilton and IHG, ExPlat AA and 1K UA, and top/upper tier all the way back to Northwest and TWA. Today the programs have been depreciated so much I just gave up on it all. I stay / fly whatever is the right combo of convenience and price. I’m self-employed and my airline spend is regularly $25K/yr. But no single airline gets it all. None of them appreciate it anyway.
They should give elites a ring to note their status and have the staff kiss it on arrival.
Exactly. Getting the acknowledgement of status is a nice egoboo, but getting the benefits that come with it is more important.
I agree with the premise of Marriott, Hilton, United, etc. living up to their loyalty promises is waaaaaaaay more important than them kissing the ring on arrival. You’d figure that Internet forums full of “these loyalty programs are total garbage” from people with huge spend would be enough to get some sort of corporate policy-making going, though.
@Ric – Hotels are very much NOT scrambling to hire staff. You have it completely backwards. The pandemic has allowed hotels to permanently riff housekeeping jobs that will never return.
AI is actively riffing jobs in Sales and Revenue Management. The more app usage increases, the more management companies will continue to riff desk jobs and pay across the board, if it ever was increased, is being clawed back to pre-pandemic levels.
You’re correct that training is poor but training in the industry has always been that way. You don’t get trained so much as you’re thrown to the wolves to figure it out as you go.
At the same point in time. Gary is his usual ridiculous self by posting this type of crap like it matters.
Trust and believe, what the employee did happens everyday. I haven’t prostrated myself in front of any guest to thank them in over twenty years and I never will.
No GM or management company would ever take this garbage seriously. If anything, this literally is the type of shit that gets “elite” guests mercilessly mocked behind their back for behaving like entitled lunatics.
I agree I don’t care about being thanked at the desk but I do love the thank you notes and treats in the room. I also want ALL my benefits awarded. I’m 2 years away from being platinum for life. I’m also MVC owner which I honestly hate it’s a scam. I miss SPG so much
Thank you for your loyalty