News and notes from around the interweb:
- Hilton permanently eliminates daily housekeep at non-luxury (Waldorf, Conrad, LXR) brands. It’s supposed to remain available ‘on request’ but we’ll see how that plays out in practice (e.g. limited hours) and whether it leads to uncollected trash in the hallways with properties filling back up.
The gap between a ‘full service Hilton’ and an Airbnb is shrinking. They’re leading the way with a big cost cut, let’s see which other chains follow. Remind me what so-called Destination Charges pay for, if you don’t even get daily housekeeping?
- Capital One is opening a hotel in September.
- US hotel occupancy is now down just 7% against 2019 which was at an elevated level. Weekends have fully recovered, but weekdays lag more due to lack of business travel.
- El Al and Etihad will codeshare and offer reciprocal mileage earn and burn. It’s amazing how things have realigned in the Mideast. Saudi Arabia even usually allows use of its airspace for flights between the U.A.E. and Israel.
- 50% bonus on Chase transfers to Marriott through August 31, 2021. On average this gets you a penny a point in value with Marriott, not a great deal, though there are outlier cases of course where you’ll do much better. Still, better to transfer when there’s a bonus than when there isn’t one – and we haven’t seen Chase transfer bonuses often so exciting on that level.
- American Airlines, which created Sabre, has once again sued the Sabre reservation system – this time for biasing displays in favor of Delta as it complies with a new Delta contract that American says violates its own agreement.
As always, anyone in the US actively giving Hilton money for status is just throwing it away….just get the CC and get top tier for (net) free
These people have lost their minds. Should be good for the exterminator business though with trash piling up. Will be interesting to see if guests boycott by filling the halls. I can just imagine the field day for canine guests, but not our problem as my pup and I are dedicated to Sheraton, um Starwood, ummm Marriott.
Remember when Starwood offered a good chunk of points if guests voluntarily took a pass on daily housekeeping? Hilton is pushing the edge of the envelope re public health.
This is as ridiculous as in the 1990s when one of the numerous rotating CEOs at a Columbia/HCA hospital in Chicago seriously suggested instead of daily bed linen change to just turn the linen over.
Public health? Have you folks lost your minds. Taking out the trash daily is very simple. It’s much less intensive (cost and labor) than full on housekeeping. A lot of residential apartments have a “trash valet” service whereby residents put their bin outside their door from, say, 5 to 7 p.m., then somebody collects all the bags and hauls them away. This service adds only a trivial fee to the monthly rent.
I loved doing that as personally I am a tidy person and I don’t need or want housekeeping daily. No reason one can’t sleep on the same clean sheets or reuse a darn towel. I loved helping the environment as well. IT was a great idea and still is as is gaining more points if one eats on site even if paying. Hilton is going to be sorry eventually. JUST TURN THE LINEN OVER? Seriously?
My mother has dementia and is a hospice patient now. I am currently trying out (to help the aids and cut down on laundry) something called Peel Away Sheets. I am still perplexed but the aids mastered it, and it is one fitted sheet with an elastic that fits over the twin sized hospital bed, and when one needs a linen change on the bottom sheet, you simply peel the top layer which is breathable and water resistent off to reveal one of 5-7 clean sheet layers below. I do not want to sleep on that at a hotel or hospital!
Stayed at a Hilton-brand where they have “Housekeeping on request” stickers and signs up. But when I actually did request it, I was told that there is NO housekeeping during stays — rooms are only cleaned after someone checks out. When I noted they have signs and stickers saying rooms are cleaned on request, they simply repeated that “policy is rooms are not cleaned during stays.”
Apparently they are not cleaned well enough to remove the signs and stickers saying they are cleaned on request.
So, liars too. BOYCOTT them.
This will force me to bring my butler and maids on future trips.
Is it legal for humans to sleep two consecutive nights on the same hotel linens? I need to check with my lawyers.
I guess the solution if you want a cleaned room is to create a different reservation for each day. . You’ll need to pack up and check out/in though. Makes it annoying for them also.
Hilton is too expensive for me.
This will lead to more bed bugs and even more sloppy hotel cleaning practices
I find it frightening as even with a cleaning team there can be lapses in proper maintenance
Likely will avoid the brands at all costs that do this
Simple. Not staying there anymore.
I don’t NEED day housekeeping but if the price hasn’t changed to reflect it, then it’s just a money grab.
So long Hilton. Plenty of other places to stay.
The Hilton homework suites main gate in Anaheim has firmed into a shit hole. They had all last year to refurbish but they didn’t change a dam thing. Old carrier, broken doors, old shower, broken lamp outlets, old bathroom, cracks everywhere, doors and panels don’t line up or shut correctly, the laundry facilities had 1 working washing machine for the better hotel on the first floor because the other 2 were broke into to steal the coins, no house cleaning, teenagers running the front desk. It smelled of pot everywhere and no one gave a dam kids running the front desk just laughed about it. Back door to hotel was broken, no free breakfast etc.. the hotel has gone down the toilet . Will never stay ever again!!
Well, now we know how Hilton intends to keep those promises to franchisees about making more profit by hosing customers. This on the tail of killing off free breakfast for elites. This does nothing to increase my desire to stay at a Hilton.
In the Nordics, both leading hotel chains (Nordic Choice and Scandic) have already implemented this BS, and the result is way dirtier rooms when you check-in and pissed-off housekeeping unions.
This sort of takes the pleasure out of staying in a hotel for a vacation. Vacation is supposed to be a reprieve from the work of home life. Sometimes we don’t use room service or evening turndown service when we spend extra time in the room between rigorous sightseeing days or day trips. But it is helpful for housekeeping to knock so we can get fresh towels and they can take dirty towels. On request housekeeping isn’t a bad idea if the on request will be available and well staffed like it used to be in the past. However, we know it won’t be.
The last two Hilton hotels I stayed at were at the Rome airport ( many years ago) and at the Munich airport (a few years ago). Hilton is like the Princess Cruises of hotels. It used to be well regarded but now it is outdated.
Hilton is good for a business hotel. It’s not a place to relax on vacation.
I like to get a little action when I’m on the road. Last thing I want is to sleep in a bed with California potato chips from the night before.
@david Action? With Pamela Handerson?
if it was me i would just open the door and those the daily trash and soiled towels into the hallway…!!!
How long before Marriott copies???
Speaking of how long…how long does one of those mini soap bars last?? No new soap for you.
If Hilton wants to give me a discount for refusing housekeeping fine, otherwise I will continue to request daily service. I am not staying in a hotel so that I can clean up my room make my bed etc. Ridiculous!
They could get rid of all staff too.Fire everybody and only do digital check in
If you need help you call the call center in India and The Philippines and they can console you while your angry or frustrated with the poor stay experience
There could be a hand holding /psychotherapy fee at check out
Brilliant cost cutting move and extra revenue stream
Call it the POTC strategy or Pi*$ on the customer
dwondermeant….don’t know what you do for a living, but I suspect you may have missed your calling….excellent summation of the mess, and glad I remain SPG 134**** FOREVER.
Let’s talk about labor shortages here, Hilton:
You can’t get people to do that hard work for terrible wages and now you’re also walling them off from the cash tips often left by guests?
Good luck enticing employees to housekeeping jobs in the future.
So my 2nd 3rd 4th 5th night will have a price adjustment? Will the trash just pile up in that little bin that they give you? Now lets talk about that little bin. the size is less then a US gallon but for some reason it does not hold a Pizza box. does not hold a donut box Does not hold any rubbish that you try to put in it! Where do they expect you to put the Hooters Chicken Wing leftovers? Do we just bring them down to the front desk and tell them since there is no rubbish pick up we will use the front desk as the town dump?
I DO NOT reuse towels at home. I do not want to reuse towels in a $200 Hilton hotel room. I expect fresh towels every day just like i do at home. Yes that is what I do . I know others who use a towel for days on end but I that is not me. Bath towels host a variety of microorganisms. Towels absorb a lot of water and remain damp for hours, which is the perfect breeding ground for unwanted germs. Dead cells make up the top 20 layers of your skin. Some of these cells scrub off in the shower, but many of them will end up on your bath towel every day.
When i was in Tokyo 2 years ago it was so humid and hot we took 2 – 3 showers EVERY day. I wanted a CLEAN towel every time!
Permanent, is always such definitive word to use.
As usual, leave it up to travel blogosphere to hyperventilate over perfectly normal or explainable developments.
According to Skift:
Translation: Hilton simply got ahead of what will shortly become an industry-wide problem. My prediction, therefore, is that Hilton’s “housekeeping on demand” will be only as “permanent” as the labor market will remain tight…
What do you expect, they are now a Chinese own company.. Stay anywhere else where you are appreciated
As I have said on similar posts, if you aren’t willing to pay through the nose, don’t expect more services….you have been getting a bargain until now. Hotel labor is hard to find and the labor pool is limited…how many people do you know who want to clean up the bathroom after you? Now that labor is hard to come by, nobody is going to prioritize your stay over room. You’re more than welcome to go to another brand but don’t expect anything different. This is the new industry standard.
That explains the odd stay at Tru by Hilton in Smyrna, Tennessee! We had never stayed at a Tru and we thought it was just a minimalist type place to stay for a younger generation but there was nothing extra. We were only there one night but there wasn’t even a coffee pot in the room. We will not be staying at Hilton again.