Less than two months ago I wrote about a Marriott Aloft hotel that has a sign in guests rooms that they will charge up to $50 per dirty towel that cannot be fully cleaned.
Hotels are nickel and diming guests for things I never used to hear of their charging extra for. The Aloft hotel in McAllen, Texas reportedly billed a guest $80.50 for washcloths because she used them to remove makeup.
I just received my statement this morning from Aloft in a smaller market for a business trip last week and noticed there was an $80.50 additional charge on my bill. I called the hotel and I was told it was for damage. I asked them for what damage and they told me for 6 washcloths. I asked for 6 additional washcloths when I checked in as I was my face in the morning and wash my makeup off in the evening.
I requested pictures in which I was told they would email me, I have yet to receive them as this just happened a couple of hours ago. I’m also waiting on the manager to call me when he gets in around noon. I have never in all my 620 nights and 24 years been charged a damaged fee.
Edit: It’s now 7 washcloths at $10 each not including two different types of tax as the email I received from the hotel this afternoon now states. They emailed me the breakdown of the charges and said pictures were attached to the email and they were not. I have requested pictures 4 times now. Manager will not return my call.
The guest reports not having housekeeping for their room during their entire stay (hence the request for extra washcloths) so it seems to me that the hotel saved more than the cost of the washcloths, and should call it even?
Meanwhile a guest at the Marriott Courtyard Cancun airport had a nosebleed that cost them $461 for getting it on their sheets.
I woke up with a heavy nosebleed about an hour before I was supposed to check out, which got all over the bedding. Blanket and sheet layers, no mattress or pillows.
I bled out in the bathroom and cleaned up all tissues, sink, and put everything disposable in the trash can before I left. I left a $20 bill USD in the room and had to leave for a van without letting anyone know before check out.
I just got sent an invoice with a total cost of 9,424 MXN
Mattress Cover: 2,074
King size sheet: 3,984
Top sheet: 732
Blanket: 2,642…I stayed here under company travel and my supervisor informed me it’s my responsibility (which I understand and can pay reasonable costs, but I don’t think this is?). I gross under $40kUSD/yr and cannot afford this at all. I don’t stay in hotels at all while not working but I do have a Silver Marriott account that I attached to the reservation
Now, this was a business trip. The employer should have their back. But is the hotel reasonable here? Should a guest be on the hook for all damages, or should the hotel absorb this – a certain percentage of guests will incur more wear than usual?
There’s no way the hotel is spending so much sheets, given bulk purchasing arrangements, and at most shouldn’t the guest be responsible for their depreciated value (these likely weren’t first-use brand new sheets)? Isn’t charging a guest – rather than expressing concern – when they have a medical issue sort of the opposite of what a hotel is supposed to do (hospitality)?
And why does this seem to be happening with Marriott franchise properties especially? Or is it? A guest was banned from a Southern California DoubleTree hotel while visiting Disneyland and billed $150 after getting blood on towels that were in the bathroom after a leg shaving accident.
Just stayed in the aloft near MIA and it is apparently a hot spot for ladies getting surgery (over heard two of them calling Marriott about the rate increasing for the night and she’s having surgery at 2pm and can’t sit for the next two days to drive to another hotel). So much so, they have a sign posted at the check in desk that there is an extra $500 hold on all surgery rooms. If housekeeping finds any leakage in the “surgery” rooms, the hold will be converted into $500 incidental fee due to linen damages.
Seems as if it’s becoming a trend in Marriott properties.
Not to mention, the towels were extra scratchy anyway. New towels wouldn’t hurt the place.
I do a lot of cocaine and thus get a lot of nosebleeds. I am skeptical of a hotel not being able to launder out the blood stains. Especially since hotels use industrial strength laundry detergent that contains chemicals banned in consumer detergents.
This Karen needs to invest in makeup wipes. She would surely go into Karen mode if she was given a stained wash cloth.
I own an Airbnb and one guests left blood all over the sheets. I had to throw them away. Accidents do happen but if it were me, I would immediately put the sheets in cold water. It’s not fair that I should have to purchase new sheets because a guests ruined them. Especially makeup, you should not use white towels to remove makeup. It doesn’t come out. Every time guests do this, they need to be replaced.
So now besides the usual checks upon arrival in a hotel room (bedbugs, mini-bar inventory, etc) I’m going to have to examine every inch of every piece of bedding, towels, etc? I’ll take great glee when I find the tiniest mark and insist that housekeeping re-make the entire room to MY satisfaction and replace the offending items with NEW items. I guess I’ll also have to examine the entire carpet for stains and insist on a complete different room lest I get charged for a carpet cleaning/replacement.
Likely this will considerably impact the hotel’s bottom line and staffing requirements!
What really surprises me about this is the hotels being so penny wise and pound foolish. I as a guest in a similar situation would do a chargeback on ridiculous charges like that. Also the sheer ill will from bad moves like that will induce folks to stay away in the future and leave really harsh reviews. This really epitomizes bad decision making from ivory tower executives.
I’m on team don’t use wash cloths for makeup removal, but also don’t use replacements as a profit center.
Blood on sheets comes / bleaches out if handled in an appropriate time assuming white sheets… which I thought was the whole reason hotels used white bedding?
As a frequent nose bleeder in winter who has bled on numerous sheets / pillow cases over the years, I can say I’ve never been billed for it. (I do ask for a bedding change if it’s mid-stay.)
Billing for bloody sheets is also a bad policy if you hope to attract honeymoon bookings. (Ok maybe not in the US…)
I don’t think it’s an absurd fee. The guests should use the hotel properties as his own goods. 150 dollars seemed stiff but lesson learned
Since room service has been curtailed of late, I just raid the cleaning cart for fresh towels or ask for a set at the front desk. Should I have a soiled towel, I’ll take it home. Buy the time I’m checking out, I’ll have a stack of towels and the attendant won’t know the true count.
@Don G
You, sir, are a glutton for punishment. I don’t kink shame. You do you.
This feels like Jasper from The Simpsons: ‘That’s a paddlin’ but it’s $150 charges. ‘That’s a $150.. that’s a $150..’ a bit excessive, no?
So many people removed their makeup with them you might as well trash them! I worked and at hotels and couldn’t understand why they keep doing that and we had to just toss the towels and face towels
Makeup won’t stain washcloths if you use bar soap instead of liquid. I found this out when I had Airbnb units. The move to liquid soap is the problem. After switching to bar soap, I never had makeup that wouldn’t come out with detergent and bleach.
Most Marriott’s (& many other hotels I’ve worked with) use a towel service. The towels get all bundled up in bins & sent out. They’re generic white small scratchy towels that get tossed into very large cleaners filled with bleach & other chemicals so they come out just as white & scratchy as they were originally. There’s really no reason to do this esp when the value of said towel is about $1. OK perhaps $2. The point is very few of these towels end up being tossed because of stains. I really hope the maids get a sizeable portion of any fee charged for a stained towel because if they do not – they should not bother to waste their time separating & reporting these. By sizeable I mean like 75%. BTW I always leave a small tip & never once had my dirty towels reported!
@gary: in all cases you only give one side of these reports and then try to “judge” them. This debases your newsletter and doesn’t inform your readers.
It would be nice to hear that the hotel has been offered the opportunity to respond after you sending them a guest-signed privacy waiver
I can’t believe what I am reading. These hotels are in the business of hospitality, serving flesh-and-blood human beings. Live bodies that ooze fluids from all sorts of orifices, bodies that eat, drink, and (hopefully) bathe. Colds, stomach flu, food poisoning, menstrual issues, norovirus – c’mon, people are going to have issues. If a hotel doesn’t want to be imposed upon with having guests dirty the sheets and towels, then maybe the hotels should get out of the hospitality business and into something that doesn’t deal with humans, like manufacturing cardboard boxes or maintaining a data center.
The other alternative is for the hotel to provide disposable makeup wipes or dark colored towels. One ABNB I stayed at had rolled, brown facecloths in a cutesy basket, labeled “for makeup removal”. The host also had coordinating towels in the same color. Granted, they aren’t white but then again, they don’t show stains.
Do do they wash the alleged dirty towels separately to make sure they didn’t come clean?
I had this happen to me at a Hyatt saying I soiled a towel. The charge was $20 or so. I just disputed with the credit card. No issue.
Are there any moderators here? Many comments shown a complete lack of concern for others, promote drug use, and spread false information about women bleeding on their honeymoon. LIKE if you are kind and don’t forcibly rape your new spouse there’s no blood. This site is wtf. So i gues come to the view from the wing to learn about drug and rape.
@L3
Wow, bootlick, much? I thought you were a right-wing troll, not a corporate shill. If you are the same L3 who blamed the recent tragic midair collision on ‘DEI,’ you have no legitimacy to ‘virtue signal’ against VFTW. Use your ‘common sense’—this website is not the Associated Press. Gary shared recently how he started this site ‘on a lark,’ and clearly it’s grown over the years. That said, he never purported to be an investigative reporter. If you want the hotel’s side of the story, go pay $150 for one of their bloody towels!
They should lay these charges on the weirdos who pee on everything for their porn channels, not things like makeup and non-criminal body fluids. A nosebleed will come right out with oxyclean or other types of peroxide. Makeup comes out with a good wash.
One aspect not mentioned is that these charges are in the same category as up-sells, meaning the employees are encouraged to report these incidents as they receive a percentage of the fee charged.
Lifetime Platinum with Marriott and I am completely done. Except for deals booked through 3rd parties where I actually earn more points than staying with the hotel directly.
Dark colored or medium colored towels are fine at home where you know the condition of the towel and know a towel is just stained and not dirty from not being laundered. Such towels are not good in a hotel. In a hotel, the white towel is standard for presenting cleanliness to the customer. White has an advantage of not fading and an advantage of being able to be bleached strong enough to get out most stains. If I was in a hotel that had towels other than white, I would inspect them thoroughly and would probably decide to not go to that hotel again.
Destroy the makeup or blood stained dowels and ask the front desk for additional ones.
Always take the dirty towels and put them in a pile on the floor . Housekeeping is less likely gong to sort and count what is in a pile.
If a hotel tries to charge you $40 for a towel . Ask them for a copy of their supplier invoice. if they do charge your credit card take them to small claims court.
Welcome to tRumpistan, y’all. I sure hope ya’ll enjoy your stay!
@tomri
Good points, but usually initiating a credit card dispute for stuff like this is better than jumping straight to court, though in our hyper-litigious society, yeah, sometimes you gotta take ‘em to court. Not fun. Win some, lose some.
Relatedly, when it comes to disputes with airlines, like over canceled or significantly delayed flights under their control, oh, how I wish we had EU261 or Canada’s APPR, so there would be baseline standards for compensation for US passengers. Instead, it’s ‘take it or leave it’ partial refund or alternative flight. We deserve better in the US.
Makeup does come out of white washcloths. Put a little soap on it, wash your makeup off, rinse your washcloth, voila it is just a wet white washcloth. If you are leaving a heavy amount of goop and mascara on the washcloth, you should bring disposable wipes instead. Even so, I don’t believe for one minute that most makeup doesn’t come out at the heavy duty commercial laundry that hotels use. Bloodstains have to be treated and it is time consuming. Maybe the hotel’s problem is inspecting and filtering out the stained washcloths and sheets that did not come clean. Definitely a Karen moment when your room has stained washcloths or sheets.
As for the 9,424 MXN charges, it seems like the hotel guest did not do anything to try to mitigate the staining of the linens. That person could have at least stripped them and washed the affected areas with any soap and or toothpaste available. Time is of essence. Sometimes other solvents would work such as alcohol (rubbing or even vodka), nail polish remover, acetone, milk, etc. While the charge for the linens seems high, procuring them in Mexico may be more difficult and the cost of the procurement labor and shipping need to be added. I have had nosebleeds before but I usually can keep the blood from spreading to so many places before getting to a place to clean up (typically I contain it before it drips). My opinion is that the guest reacted slowly when the nosebleed started.
The amount is high, but otherwise the fee is legitimate. People using hotel towels to die their hair, remove make up and ruining hotel towels, why exactly should they not pay?
Why should the rest of the hotel guests, who do not ruin towels pay??? (Damages absorbed by the hotels would drive rates up, no?)
@Benii
Bleeding on your honeymoon does not mean you were rough. The vaginal opening can be partially covered by a thin piece of skin called a hymen that bleeds due to stretching or tearing.
Where’s Mayor Pete when you need him. I’ll bet he’s had a few extra charges for fecal stained sheets.
@Benji @David
You could self-moderate, like not be pricks or fools, but you’d have to be ‘decent’ for once, and that’s in short supply for anonymous internet strangers.
Gary is a ‘free speech absolutist’ and rarely moderates on here. It’s not necessarily a bad thing—we can share our thoughts, some of which may actually be helpful to others who care.
That said, if you say abhorrent things, like David, I’ll call you out. It won’t do much, but at least other decent folks will recognize that at least somebody said something when someone else was being a bigot. Do better, man.
@David
Lol, you’re probably correct.
@Thumper
Just ‘come out’ already sir! You ‘doth protest too much, methinks.’ You do you. We don’t kink-shame here.
Or, you recently got that norovirus. Man, those suckers are brutal. They ‘hit quick’ if you know what I mean. You’re gonna need some more towels!
Or, is it that you suffer from urinary and/or fecal incontinence? Yeah, that happens with age, too. Nothing to be ashamed of. Enjoy your retirement, sir.
I have been in the hotel business for 40 years, 20 as a General Manager. As a rule, in the properties I manage, it comes down to willful disregard. If you ruin one washcloth with makeup, we offer makeup remover cloths to you to help avoid it, and we will not charge. If you ruin 6, after we have offered, you will most likely be charged. If you accidentally ruin sheets and bedding, we understand that. If you engaged in behavior that caused damage that could have been avoided, we may not be so understanding. The detergents and chemicals that we use may be different than your home products, but they are also required to be hypoallergenic on a broad scale. Using bleach, at least at my hotels, is not an option so, it is much more difficult to remove stains without damaging the linen. A well run hotel, regardless of the brand, understands that damage occurs in the normal course of business and plans for it. If you are an individual that needs to remove makeup while staying at the hotel, please ask if make up remover wipes are available, mist well run hotels are happy to provide them.
I don’t agree with the ridiculous pricing but it’s probably a knee-jerk response to how poorly people treat a business. Yeah you can say corporate makes a ton of money but if you actually saw the bottom line of the owners p&l you wouldn’t say that. It’s more of a real estate game. I think a reasonable fee would suffice to replace, but I feel like many people just don’t have any respect or courtesy for other people’s property
Double Tree, isn’t Marriott. It’s Hilton.
@Jeremy the DoubleTree was explicitly a story of this happening at a non-Marriott
It’s all Canada and Mexico’s. They should pay. China too.
@Donald.
I’m assuming you just like the word ‘tariff’ and don’t actually understand what that means to all of us—we’ll find out soon enough, but I don’t think it’s going to lower the ‘price of eggs.’ Good luck to you and yours, sir.
Micellar water and cotton round pads can be used to remove makeup easily. I travel with both. Prefer this to a dark colored washcloth that can’t be bleached and you don’t know what it was actually used for before.
All comes down to consideration for others. Hotels as well as patrons.
Of course make-up comes out when towels ir wash cloths are bleached. I do the laundry in our house and my wife removes her make-iup with wash cloths, and they look fine if you use chlorine bleach.
I’ve stayed at a lot of Marriott properties over the past 20 yrs. and have you ever noticed the toilets are so low from the floor. Very uncomfortable. When will someone address this issue and make the phone higher. This from a guy who is only 5’ 7”.
Unbelievable. I will go back to my pandemic ways and bring my own sheets and towels.
I’ve noticed lately that some bonvoy hotels have included black face cloths with the word makeup embroidered. Seems like the perfect solution
I i am happy to hear that. I am not the only person noticing a decline in customer service from Marriott hotel, of all places. I stayed in a hotel in Phenix City, Alabama, in December. of 2024. PEOPLE DO NOT GO THERE!!! service it was terrible! The air conditioning unit rattled all night long. When they changed me to a new room, it was a repeat of the same.They charged me for a vehicle that I didn’t have. When I complained about the servic, they refunded the money they took for the vehicle. The stay cost me 99,500 points and one of my free nights. When did Marriott turn into such a low quality hotel chain? We are going to Phuket,
Thailand for 30 days in late May. I hope that Marriott International still has the quality of service that is absent at: 1400 Whitewater Phenix City, Alabama. 36867
Courtyard Columbus Phenix City, Riverfront to stay? If not, advise anyone reading this to rethink visiting Marriott during your travels.
This topic sure has lit up the comment section! I worked for both Marriott and Hyatt Hotels International when I was in college and can tell you that this used to be a cost of doing business. Stains happen! My word, this is an insult to the customer. I assure you that no hotel pays $10.00 for a wash cloth. This is ridiculous and scares guests away from a brand. Just stupid on the hotel’s part. Stupid business practice. Now some company needs to take on hotels without the fear of added on fees and ridiculous charges such as these.
@HERMAN C. FISHER
Sorry to hear, man. Glad you got a refund on the erroneous vehicle charge. We gotta review those invoices at check-out. Sometimes they rush you so you won’t look–but it ‘pays’ to do so.
Wow, Phuket for 30 days! That sounds very nice. I presume you will not be staying with Marriott there. Hopefully, an epic vacation like that makes up for the inconveniences you faced in Alabama.
Safe travels!