When you are on a business trip or on vacation, there may be times when you have to stay in a hotel. It can be an inconvenience but it is also something that many people enjoy.
It doesn’t matter if you are staying at an upscale hotel or if you are staying in a budget motel, you need to be careful that you are getting what you are paying for. In addition, there are plenty of ways to tweak your visit to make it much better for you and those with you.
The following 12 suggestions are from hotel employees who know their way around and have seen almost anything imaginable. Follow these tips and you will save money, time, and frustration for your next hotel stay.
1. “If you ever need to cancel a hotel reservation, but it’s already past the cancelation deadline, just call and move your reservation up a few days. Wait 5 minutes. Call back, now well within the cancelation window, and cancel your stay for free.”
2. “I worked in numerous luxury 5-star properties worldwide. You will be surprised if you know the food quality in buffets. I’ve seen yellow food coloring added and labelled as ’saffron sauce’, pan fried sea bass? It’s pan fried white fish that comes in generic bags labelled ’white fish’. People change the expiration date on stuff so that the food cost doesn’t increase.”
3. “Those tiny free bottles of shampoo you find in your hotel room? Please don’t use them. We’re not allowed to tell guests this, but those bottles are often refilled with expired product.
Instead of replacing them, housekeeping collects the bottles, refills them from large bulk containers, and reseals them. The problem? Those bulk containers have been sitting in storage for months, often past their expiration date.”
4. “It doesn’t hurt to ask if there’s a better rate. Depending on the property, if you’re nice, the front desk has the power to do a lot with your rate. At one property I worked at if we were almost full, and it was past 9 pm I could cut $50 off the rate if I felt like it, at most though I can only really give a 10% discount, but I can do it for almost any reason.”
5. “Spread a towel out on the counter before putting your stuff on it, because I know some of my coworkers would go from floor to shower to toilet to sink with the same rag. I know people who would do twelve rooms or more with two rags: bathroom and not bathroom. Nobody cared, the goal was to remove all traces of the last guest and make it smell nice.”
6. “Never sleep directly on a pillow in a hotel. Always bring your own pillowcase and cover it. We can’t tell guests this, but the hotel pillows are actually rarely washed.
The pillowcases get changed, sure, but the pillows themselves? They’re only cleaned if there’s an obvious stain or odor. Most of the time, they just get reused over and over again. I’ve seen pillows in rooms that have been there for months, maybe even years, without being properly cleaned.”
7. “Noise complaints will be promptly ignored. Why? Because sound carries from several rooms above you, and most people don’t know which room is being loud even when it’s right next to them.
Being one room off is the difference between asking someone to keep it down, and waking up the Rage Lady at 3am. I’ll go up and listen to see if I can pinpoint the room, but if I can’t, then you’re just gonna have to deal with it.”
8. “If you like big bathrooms, ask for a handicap accessible room with a ’roll in shower’, normally about twice the size of a standard bathroom, but without the tub.”
9. “Housekeepers only change the sheets, not the coverlet or the second blanket, unless it’s been stained, and we’re unable to hide it.
10. “I worked the night shift at a hotel and had to prepare breakfast. I will never eat scrambled eggs at a hotel again, unless I see the cook actually breaking the eggs.
It’s disgusting how much food can just be bought en masse and prepared in under 5 minutes. Ready-to-cook egg mix. Just pour it into a pan and heat the ooze up… 5 minutes later: scrambled ’eggs’. Doesn’t taste good at all.”
11. “If you don’t like your room, ask for the manager after the first night and kindly state that you felt an itching in the night, and you think that something bit you. After investigation, you found an approximately 1.5 cm long black bug on your sheets. Tell them that that might have been a ’bedbug’.
Just whisper that word, so no other guest hears it. Say that if they find a different room for you, you don’t need to include this detail in your trip advisor review. If you were friendly and polite — free upgrades to suites this time and the next times.”
12. “Ask the hotel to remove such fees as Wi-Fi, newspaper, gym and pool. These are often included, but they will remove if requested.”
