Recommendations From A Hotel Insider

By Author: Steve Robinson
Total Articles: 468
Comment this article

Cheap travel deals, including cheap airplane tickets, discount hotel rooms, and cheap vacation packages are all great ways to travel, but insight from someone well versed in how hotels operate can improve your hotel stay.

A front desk agent can improve guests’ stays with a keystroke, if so inclined. The same person can make guests visits miserable for people who show an attitude in many ways including assigning a room where the phone will ring non-stop to giving room keys that suddenly stop working.

The following are hotel insider tips from Jacob Tomsky who has written “A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality” called “Heads in Beds”:

• Do your best not to touch mini bar glasses since often they are “cleaned” with something that makes them shine, such as furniture polish, but is not advisable to hold drinks afterward. Avoid touching remotes because they are very hard to clean and any blankets on the bed or in the closet since those are not frequently cleaned.

• Leave a tip up front for housekeeping since it may improve your service and money left for a housekeeper ...
... when you check out may not make it to the intended person. The amount of the tip should vary depending on the property, but $5 a day is a good guideline. Leave any tip in an envelope marked “Housekeeping” since otherwise the housekeeper may assume that the guest wants that money.

• While stealing is not recommended, guests can usually get around paying for items in the mini bar and for in room movies. Such items are the most disputed charges on any bill. When guests complain that they did not use these items, most hotels will remove them. Hotels do not want to accuse guests of lying.

• Be prepared to dispute any inappropriate hotel charges before paying the bill. Do not automatically assume that your bill is correct. Mistakes do occur.

• Front desk representatives do put notes in a guest’s reservation if a guest is unreasonable. Both good and bad observations are often recorded.

Hotel guest behavior has deteriorated in general over the years, according to Tomsky. He attributes this to the increasing frustration people experience when flying that winds people up by the time they reach the front desk. People tend to feel powerless when sitting on the tarmac. Once on the ground some guests feel likes masters of the hotel and direct air rage at the front desk.

In Tomsky’s experience it is common for guests to expose themselves to housekeeping or be loud during lovemaking. Many guests view hotel rooms as very sexy places.
www.cheapfares.com