A couple of times in my life, I’ve said “let’s spare no expense” and paid about $300 for a room in a high end hotel for one night. Specifically, I’m referring to the Dallas Anatole Hilton and the Omni Hotel at the Galleria in Houston. So I get to the room, and it’s not any larger than a $40-$60 room in a Best Western or a Motel 6. It does smell slightly nicer, and the cleaning staff did spend the time to make it visually appear spotless. So there is that.
But, right after tipping the bellhop, the upsell begins. I’ve already forked over $300, I spot a nice bottle of water right there in a the room, in case I get thirsty. It has a $4.50 or something price tag on it. The minifridge snacks are all listed at movie theater pricing.
Be nice to get on the internet, right. Oh, look, they want $20 more so I can enjoy a service than macdonalds offers for free. And so on.
After a night not noticeably better than a rest in a cheap motel, I head down to breakfast. Surely my $300 gets me a bowl of cereal and maybe some mini-yogurts like any low to mid range motel, right? Nope, another $10 or $20, of course.
This is why I don’t spend time in high end hotels any more. Having to pay 5 times as much for a place to sleep is one thing. Having them actively harassing me with additional charges on top of that just makes me perpetually feel ripped off. It’s hard to describe the feeling, I mean, it’s not like I couldn’t have afforded the extra $100 or whatever for all the upsells they were pushing. However, I think I would have been much happier if I’d had to pay a higher base rate and all the perks were rolled in.
Agreed, it is very annoying. I don’t find hotels relaxing at all and the posh-er the more uncomfortable I feel. probably because I have yet to stay in a fancy hotel that made me think I was getting value for money.
When we go on holiday now we pretty much always get an apartment. No overheads, no-one with their hand out, wi-fi included, better facilities and far, far cheaper than an equivalent sized hotel. Our summer holiday on the continent probably average £500 a week for a two-bedroom apartment with all the above plus a pool. A hotel with equivalent space would be nearly three times as much.
ETA - I calibrate my hotel spending by the Holiday Inn Express at Stuttgart airport. The family stayed there last year just after Christmas. Family room, covered Parking, free wi-fi, clean spacious room and huge free breakfast for 65 Euro all-in. If you are charging me more than that and giving me less then I’m going to feel ripped off.
I think your idea of “high end” hotel is very different than average.
I had the good fortune to stay in a 3.5-4 star hotel in downtown pittsburgh last year.
Bed: had a bed pad, comforter, the works.
Office nook: free phone, desk, writing utensils, etc. All gratis.
Water: The entire hotel uses filtered water. I was told that the water in the bathroom was potable. But, I was also given two free bottles of water per day.
Coffee: I’m not a big breakfast eater, but a coffee machine with gourmet coffee was already in the room, also gratis.
Wifi: gratis.
TV: All the basic cable channels, and iirc, some of the premium channels as well. Also, a 32’ LCD/Plasma TV.
Air conditioning: in-room controls, both cold and heat.
Swimming pool, fitness center: free to guests.
I was able to get the room because of an internet error so I booked it for $25/night. The regular price at that hotel was something like 500/night. I think just because it costs more than a Motel 6 doesn’t mean it’s better than a Motel 6.
What about the location of the hotel? Where are the $60 Motels 6 in relation to the Dallas Anatole Hilton? Maybe the location wasn’t $240 more valuable to you, but location is something guests have to pay for, even for an otherwise identical room.
A part of it as well is what type of clientelle the hotel relies on it. The moderate to higher end hotels often relies on business travellers. With the room being paid for by the employer, the person staying there doesn’t care what other expenses he pays for, it all goes on the bill they don’t have to pay for.
We usually stay in reasonably inexpensive rooms- figuring that most of what you do as a family is watch TV and Sleep there. However, I will shell out for location- New York Skyline from New Jersey, Suite with Balcony overlooking both Niagara Falls, view of Hollywood sign one way and LA basin the other, right on Hollywood and Highland, swimming pool overlooking the Blvd!. The extra money is no more than entrance fees etc for a family to sites for a day and makes the visit just as much better! Don’t use minibars, don’t drink water, use a tethered phone for internet, eat in good inexpensive restaurants off site.
This is it exactly. If you’re willing to fork over an insane amount of money for a room, management figures you don’t care about being hit up for all kinds of extra ludicrous charges (including several bucks for a can of soda from a vending machine).
This is partly why I don’t ever stay at such places, even if they’re hosting a conference I’m attending and I can get some or all of the expenses reimbursed.
Sounds to me like you did want to spare some expenses. You did want to see more value for your money. With all due respect, I think you mistakenly imagined yourself to be more wealthy and more carefree than you really are. The truly wealthy and carefree would not be bothered by what you (and I!) refer to as “nickel-and-diming”.
If I’ve offended you, then I apologize. But before you disagree with me, please consider these questions: Did you investigate what you would get for that $300? Did you simply presume that at such a price everything else would be thrown in gratis?
Personally, I’m a penny-pinching SOB who long ago realized that the same WiFi is free in the cheap hotels but costs bigtime in the expensive hotels. And now you know it too.
I’ve always figured the higher end in-city hotels use a business traveler pricing structure that assumes the person staying there is expensing the cost and therefore is not really paying attention to all the nickels and dimes going down the toilet.
I stayed at a nice Marriott in downtown Milan Italy once and it was like a $350 room. Still I was impressed at how they tried to manage to squeeze even more out of me while I was there, not just nickle and dime. They had a mini bar in the room and I don’t ever use those things because I know that they are going to rape you for anything; but this one had a new scam. They had a local bottle of beer with a big titted Italian lady on the label and I picked it up to look at it; just by doing that they charged almost $35 because there was a sensor on it that rang it up as a sell!
Even my shifty Italian suppliers that I was there auditing were impressed at how shifty the hotel was.
Nah, not there. There are a whole slew of lesser priced hotels around the Anatole- there’s an Embassy Suites up the freeway a mile or two, and a Days Inn a few blocks away.
But… what the OP describes is just how hotels above a certain price point operate. They don’t make you drink that spiffy mineral water- there’s always a glass in the room that you can drink tap water from. Minibars are (and probably always have been) notorious ripoffs.
In my experience, having stayed at rat-trap Travelodges in San Francisco, all the way up through hotels like the W in New Orleans, Intercontinental in Budapest and Omni hotels in Dallas, Austin and Houston, what you get for your money is guaranteed cleanliness, maintenance and a lot quieter experience than if you stay at the lesser hotels. Usually the amenities are nicer as well, but not always. For example, nicer hotels have real bars and restaurants, while lesser ones either don’t have that kind of thing at all, or they have something that barely meets the definition. I guarantee the bar and restaurant at the Anatole beat the crap out of their counterparts at the Embassy Suites down the road.
Every time I’m at a budget hotel, something doesn’t work right, is kind of cheap / disposable, or doesn’t seem to have been cleaned very well or very recently. Plus there are invariably hordes of screaming children, drunk college kids and/or locals, and other loud sorts.
I haven’t run across that kind of thing in hotels above a certain price point. Everything works, it’s spotless, and they’re quiet.
I don’t know if this applies to the Anatole Hilton, but there’s another variable in this equation. A lot of companies base their allowable per diem lodging on the federal government’s travel allowance for that city. A hotel will publish that rate so it will be allowed by most companies’ travel guidelines. Then, they will add on fees to make up the difference.
I ran into this a few years ago when I wanted to stay at a hotel closer to the job site that was $10 over the allowed per diem. The hotel that was allowed was under the per diem, but they charged $10 a day for parking. They were also 10 miles further away from the job. I wanted to be closer to the job. My employer’s travel department wouldn’t allow it.
I think the reason they do that is that people would consume the food or beverage in the room minibar and then restock it from a convenience store down the street. So now at some hotels, just removing the item triggers the charge.
And I agree that Hilton Hotels aren’t really high-end. The Wikipedia article on Hilton Hotels calls them “full-service” hotels, while their Conrad Hotels are luxury hotels
The last few times I’ve traveled, I’ve stayed at Hampton Inns, which are part of the Hilton family (“focused” hotels in the Wikipedia article). Quite nice; free WiFi, free breakfast, 32" LCD TV with a bunch of DirecTV channels, etc, for about $100/night (although these stays were in smaller towns and cities).
Actually, all the wealthy people I know–even people worth millions–are pretty concerned with getting good value for their money. That’s how they got wealthy and stay wealthy. That doesn’t mean they don’t spend money–they spend a great deal. But they are not oblivious to $30 here and $50 there.
I think it’s that people on expense reports don’t care that much. In fact, company policy may be written in such a way that there is a max room rate of $X a night, and other expenses “as reasonable” or something. So they want the most room they can get for whatever $X is, and would prefer other expenses to be itemized.
It’s also just a matter of custom. People have one set of expectations about cheap hotels and another about nice hotels.
FYI, the Wikipedia article on hotels has a nice section describing the differences among luxury, full-service, focused, economy and other sorts of hotels. Basically, it seems to come down to amenities. Does the hotel have a full-service restaurant? Does it have a spa? Conference facilities? Personalized services? The article does not distinguish based on whether services are extra-cost or folded into the room price.
That’s the thing that baffles me. Amenities? Who has time for that? I didn’t travel to this random city to hang around in a hotel and lounge in their spa. I’m going to be out sightseeing or doing whatever the heck I came to the city to do; I’m going to drag my weary ass into the room at the end of the day, go to bed, and check out so I can get on my way. Never in my life have I gone to a hotel (as opposed to a resort) just for the purpose of being in the hotel. So all I want it a bed, a bath, maybe a TV to go to sleep by, and ideally, WiFi.
So yeah, hotels seem to be all about the conspicuous consumption. Staying at the Hilton seems a lot ritzier (heh) than staying at a motel down the road, even if the basics are the same.
This is the key. A large number of travellers who stay in $300 hotel rooms are on someone else’s dollar. As long as the expense is reasonable, the business will pay for it.
(This is what’s wrong with health care, too - when the people getting the service don’t really have to pay, and the people paying - insurance - get reimbursed by someone else - the business - nobdy cares enough about the cost to put their foot down).
If there are 300 rooms, and half are business travellers who want internet enough to pay $20, that’s an extra $3,000 a day. Ditto for breakfast at $25. Add in the people who can easily afford $300+$25+$20 and you make some decent amount of extra. If the others don’t want to pay, well, you got their $300 anyway.
It’s maybe analogous to airline travel. Airlines have the nice low competitive price, it matches their competitors. But… if you want to check a bag - $25. Buy our box lunch - $5. Pick your seat - $3. And so on. their total revenue per passenger is higher than the entry-level “rack rate”. (But in the case of airlines - their cheap seat puts them at the top of Expedia or Travelocity’s list of flights, and that’s how they attract customers.
One time I tried the restocking gambit and couldn’t find that particular brand of wine anywhere. It was kind of funny – when I asked the clerk at a liquor store for XYZ Wine, he laughed and said, “Are you staying at the Hilton?”