Travel Expert Warns About Power of Hotel Workers

[EvilEmpryss]

Anyone here familiar with travel expert Christopher Elliott? He just posted an article about the power hotel workers hold over guests. He warns guests to be civil to keep from being put in less-than-preferential rooms,being put in time out, and getting their credit cards frozen.

I can't decide if he's intentionally making desk clerks out to be mob enforcers or if he's really just trying to get through to thick-skulled guests.

What do you guys think of this article?
Article Revenge of the Hotel Clerks: 5 Things They'll Do to Difficult Guests

[Rapscallion]

He's a 'consumer advocate'. That never bodes well.

However, the vast majority of what he posted looks to be the result of a slow news day. At least two of those are anecdotes of what happened to one or two people, and the rest are fanciful for the most part.

The net result of that article is that the majority of customers reading it are going to divide into three camps.

The first camp are going to do nothing differently. This is going to be over ninety percent of readers.

The second camp are going to be scared shitless and waste time checking things they don't need to check normally.

The third camp are going to be aggressive to try and intimidate the desk clerks to make them aware that there will be greater retribution should they be inconvenienced, and they'll be looking for inconvenience. After all, their actions have been justified by that article...

Rapscallion

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

All the things on that list (except the obscene phone calls, and that's probably something that only happened to that one person.) strike me as asshole taxes, and disclosing them isn't going to make the assholes be any less of an asshole than they normally are.

In fact, they may decide to be even bigger assholes than normal, just so they can get the desk clerk do one or more of these things, raise a big stink about it, and try to get other "consumer watchdogs" to notice and take action.

It's more empowering to the assholes than it is to the desk clerks who deal with the assholes. Stupid article is stupid.

[zombiequeen]

That's silly

Jeez, I hate that they have to remind you to be nice, it seems as humans we would know to be nice to others...oh wait, what site am I on again

[tropicsgoddess]

The credit card hold thing I call bullshit on because places like gas stations (when you pay at the pump versus inside the station at the register) put holds on your cards to pre-authorize your card as a clearing process with the card company or bank (if it's debit) and then process it for the actual amount (total plus tip an/or gratuity). Same thing with restaurants.

[Teskeria]

The credit card hold thing I call bullshit on because places like gas stations (when you pay at the pump versus inside the station at the register) put holds on your cards to pre-authorize your card as a clearing process with the card company or bank (if it's debit) and then process it for the actual amount (total plus tip an/or gratuity). Same thing with restaurants.

Yep, gas stations hold between 75 and 125 when you swipe the pump (seriously hurting people with low limits) and BTW a lot of them do NOT release the hold when they put the charge through. And most hotels in my experience (as a cc c/s rep currently) hold at least $300. Some hotels like the one that starts with a Ball, and ends with a y, actually refuse to release their hold when you cancel within the policy. They tell you to just wait and it will drop off eventually (umm sure 8-10 business days later - not helpful when it is taking up most of your limit if the primary card holder has you set to a specific spend per month) One CM (cardmember) had that hold 10 days and it still was there, even though he had cancelled less than 10 minutes later for a reservation 3 months away.
Restaurants on the other hand usually get the hold for the exact tab amount and the charge is posted with the tip if you put it on the card. The good restaurants actually have it set so that when you look at charge details it says ## charge, ## tip.

[jedikuonji]

I work in hotels, have for almost 10 years now. Let's look at these:

1. Make you wait.

Yea. This happens.

2. Freeze your credit card.

Maybe happens somewhere. Most likely an accident, or I would think anyway. Here's how this would most likely go down for the employee doing the huge holds:

1st time: Oops, accident, sorry.
2nd time: Verbal warning to stop making mistakes. Double check your work and all that.
3rd time: Write up.
4th+ time: Depending on the chain (I've worked at several) this is where you might get one last chance or just fired. In fact, depending on the chain, you might get fired before this since you obviously can't be trusted to do your job properly.

3. Bad room assignment.

Yea. This happens. To expand on this: There's always rooms with minor issues, stuff like channels 15 to 19 are fuzzy, the hot water is slow to come on in the sink, desk chair doesn't lean back, etc. These rooms are typically sold last...or to annoying people. Bonus points if you get a room not ready person put into one of these rooms.

4. Find other ways to annoy.

He turned an anecdotal story into a general point. This is so stupid as to not even be worth further mention.

5. Make you pay.

See number 2. Although you are more likely to be fired sooner, rather than later, for this since, unlike a hold, you are actually stealing from the guest.

[infinitemonkies]

Lemme weigh in here as a current hotel worker:

1. Make you wait:
In my hotel, and pretty much every hotel in the city, our check-in time is clearly posted, and mentioned on all 3rd party sites (such as expedia) In our case, it's 3pm. If you show up before then, maybe we can get you in early, maybe not. it depends on how busy housekeeping is. In the last 2 years, there have only been 2 days where we've had someone with a reservation show up, and no rooms ready. Both days had 3 or more hk staff not show up, and in both cases a room was made ready for them in less than half an hour.
On the other hand, at least once a month I'll get the following: Someone has a reservation for monday night. Check-in time is 3pm or later on monday. They show up just after midnight sunday night, expecting to get the room and not have to pay for an extra night. I tell them to come back in 15 hours, though we'll hold onto their luggage if they ask.

2. Freeze your credit card.
First of all, almost no one listens when we say we're going to do a pre-auth or a hold on their cc, and less than a quarter of the few who do listen understand what it means. But the suck in this case is almost entirely with the banks/cc companies themselves. If I do a pre-auth on your card, it will put a hold on those funds until the transaction is completed or 10 days. If we complete the transaction, the hold is removed immediately. If we wish to remove the hold, we have to call it in, spend an average of 35-40 minutes getting it "processed" and then they still tell us it will be 3-5 business days anyway before the hold comes off. I don't get how they can process a charge or even a refund instantly, but it takes a week to manually remove a hold, but it isn't the hotels fault.
And as for the amount, YOU have to sign the pre-auth slip, and/or enter your pin number if you have a chip card. Let's say for whatever reason I did make the hold for $500 more than the total cost of your accomodations, YOU'RE the one who authorized it.

3. Bad room assignment:
Okay, first of all, the difference is usually negligible. Or, if there is a noticeable difference, then there's a different rate that goes along with it. At my hotel, we have some "executive suites." These are rooms that are significantly nicer. They got big comfy leather couches, large flatscreen tvs, a stereo system, etc. They also cost about 40% more than the rest of the rooms. You get what you pay for.
If you're drunk, rude, or try to bitch whine and haggle about the rates, I'm gonna put you in the worst room I have available. If you're friendly and polite, I'll put you in the best I have available, but generally speaking, they're all pretty much the same anyway.

4. Find an extracurricular way to torture you.
Absolutely not. Never. If you really pissed me off, I'll put you on our "do not rent" list, and we'll refuse you service in the future, but probably not, because no one on staff ever checks the damned thing anyway.

5. Make you pay — literally.
What the fuck is this guy talking about? Seems to me he's trying to say a desk clerk will commit credit card fraud if you're an SC. Either that or we're such bastards we make people pay for services they used, which aren't free. The horror!
Yeah, If you're a good customer, we might wave the charges on some things, like local calls for instance. But if you're an sc, better believe we'll charge you the clearly posted rate for services you actually did use.
Don't wanna pay for phonecalls? Don't use the phone.
Don't wanna pay a late check-out fee? Don't check out late. (Btw, at my hotel, the check-out deadline is 11am, but to my knowledge, we've never charged anyone, no matter how sucky they were, unless they still hadn't left the room by the time housekeeping has left for the day. If it's 5pm, and you still haven't left the room, even if you do leave I can't sell that room tonight, better believe I'm gonna charge you for it. You had a 6-hour grace period to get your shit together and still couldn't manage it.)

[Magpie]

There are two categories of problems that he's listing. The first are annoying stuff that are going to happen occasionally no matter what, even if you have a perfect angel who loves everyone at the front desk. The second category are criminal activities, that he's trying to imply the average desk clerk would be willing to do. I'm not impressed with this guy.

[Evil Queen]

My turn to weigh in as a current hotel worker (thanks, infinatemonkies, for the PM)

1) Make you wait.

I admit, I did this to a guest yesterday. Mostly because his room really wasn't ready, check OUT time is 12-Noon, and he wanted to check in at 11:30AM. Listen, check in time isn't until 3pm and I can not tell you which rooms are available until AFTER housekeeping gets back from their lunch break because that's when they start checking rooms. If you're going to be an ass and yell at me, I will not only make you wait, but I WILL inform you that such behavior is unacceptable and if you do NOT calm down I WILL cancel your room and you can go elsewhere.

2) Freeze Your Card

This is pure baloney. Yes, hotels do authorize credit cards for the cost of the stay, plus taxes, plus an estimate of incidentals being incurred (for us, it's X Nightly Rate, plus tax, plus $25). We don't really have the power to change the authorization rule unless you go in manually and sometimes that takes a while to do depending on the system being used. I, personally, have never tried to over-authorize for more than the required amount.

3) Assign you the least desirable room.

Nope, what asswipe came up with this one? And simply because "you don't look like you belong"? WTF! We're not shallow, miserable people out to get the working man. If there's issues with a room, it's going to be minor. No room with major problems are going to be rented to guests. That makes us look bad. We're operating out of what we can.

4) Find an extracurricular way to torture you.

Hell, NO. We can and will lose our jobs for doing something like that. We're not vindictive people. If you're a real nuisance, we will add you to the DNR (Do Not Rent) list or simply put you as far away from the front desk as humanly possible so we don't have to deal with you.

5) Make you pay — literally.

Again, we can and will lose our jobs over this. The only thing I, personally, am going to charge a guest after they check out is a damage fee of $250 IF they DID incur damages, evidence of drugs or smoking was in the room or if they stole something from the property like towels, pillows, sheets and the like. We won't charge the full $250 for the little stuff, but they do come with price tags. A freaking wash cloth costs $5 for us to purchase. It will cost you the same if you take it or ruin it with blood or impossible to get off make up.

Yes, I admit being nice to your clerk does get you little perks like a free room upgrade (if possible) or a nicer room away from the elevator or drink machines.

Other than that, I'm sure this guy made up a lot of it.

[superhotelworker]

I have a problem with this guy for more than one reason..

1) Make you wait
I have NEVER made a guest wait unless I really had to. And as my website, and signs behind my desk say check in isn't til AFTER 3 and Checkout is 11 am, the only time you're 'waiting' is if My system has kicked me out, or you come in during those times. Deal with it.

2. Hold on your cards
Why YES, we DO Authorizations on your cards, because hey, it's pretty well COMMONPLACE in hotels, and covers whatever may happen. In my hotel's case, it's LITERALLY: Room & Tax.

3. Room Assignments
Yes, we pick your room. You know how? "Empty room, fits your requirements the best." The ONLY time we even think about the view, is if you ask for it. And in the case my hotel, you're SOL. Highway, Lowes or Kohls are your view.

4. Extra Curricular
No no no no. Heckling the guests or causing them ANY issue, will get us fired. Instant fire.

5. Extra charges
I've only charged a guest 10.00 for a phone bill unpaid and 250 for damages (Illegal drugs, stealing / damage).. Somedays I wish I could charge a 3.00 asshole charge..

And yes, being NICE to your desk clerk has perks. If you come in, and say please and thank you or even come in and crack jokes, I usually take off 10-15 percent, since that usually earns me the nice people as repeat customers.

I hate people that write articles like this.. As I told Mommy Manager: Maybe we should have dropped his ass in Days Inn. None of the ass kissing he mentions would have worked.

[smileyeagle1021]

1. Make you wait- halfway true... if you are nice I may be willing to find ways to accommodate you other than waiting the room to be cleaned (eg, you reserved a room without a microwave and fridge I may be willing to bump you into one with a microwave and fridge if it is available sooner... but if you are a jerk about it I will make you wait for the room you reserved).

2. Hold on your cards- bullshit, most hotel software does the hold automatically... we do not manually control the hold amount.

3. Assign less desirable rooms- halfway true... if you are nice I will make sure that you are put in a better room, but if you are a jerk, you will get whatever room the computer auto assigns.

4. That hotel employee should be charged with criminal stalking. Psycho's are not limited to any profession.

5. Extra charges- halfway true in as much as we are much more likely to waive charges if you are a nice guest, if you are a jerk, sorry, you're paying full price.

[trailerparkmedic]

As a hotel guest, I call BS on #3 in particular.

I've gone to many very nice hotels with reservations from Hotwire, Expedia, and through the hotel itself. I had one reservation for a fancy smancy downtown hotel where I paid so much I got to check in on the 18th floor (instead of the ground floor) and the concierge emailed me before my trip to see if we needed anything. I showed up there in flip flops and a tshirt and still got a fabulous room and amazing service. I normally show up in nothing more formal than jeans and I've never gotten a terrible room.

Maybe that's because I say please and thank you and treat the hotel people like humans? Nah, that's too simple.

[TelephoneAngel]

The article is pretty ridiculous, and evet admits none of this may even happen.

I think you could write similar about any field of work but still none of it is very likely.

eg "the supermarket worker is capable of squashing your fruit to annoy you"
"the call centre worker might keep you on hold for a log time to annoy you"

or then again maybe that won't happen.

[EvilEmpryss]

Yeah, I pretty much figured (after being around this forum for a few months) your responses would discredit Elliott's article. What surprised me was the article itself: Elliott is usually much more on the ball regarding accusations like those. He usually cites more than silly anecdotes, and he was great at resolving a dispute I had with an airline, so this article was a real disappointment.

The thing about the holds on the cards really annoyed me: What were these people planning to do to pay for their vacation if the total amount of the hotel being authorized on their card was enough to lock up the account?

As always, you attract more flies (and get more conveniences from the staff) with honey than you do with vinegar. Be nice to the staff and your stay will be more pleasant. When did simple common courtesy become difficult and uncommon?