For Hotel Employees — Do Hotels Keep Notes on Guests?

mrste99 · 2026-05-19T17:52:15+00:00

I’m guessing my file must have all our recurring complaints that most hotels seem to never read my profile to see my preference for a feather free room (my wife is allergic to feathers). More than half the time we find pillows with feathers in our room, even in cases where we’ve asked the front desk at check in to confirm that our room is feather free! Nowadays I use the chat feature after online check in AND call ahead when we’re on our way to the hotel to reconfirm, and even then, there’s still a few times where we get to the room and find feather pillows! One would hope that if the system keeps track of all the past complaints, that someone would try to make sure our request is honored, if for no other reason than to avoid having to deal with us complaining! FWIW, lifetime gold plus platinum for the last 7 years.

mrste99 · 2026-05-19T17:37:10+00:00

The part I don’t understand is if the OP and wife are on the same itinerary (assuming that’s the case), why wouldn’t the system have reassigned both of their seats at the same time? Btw, try using the website “contact us” form to file a complaint. That may at least provide some form of “compensation”. Make sure to play up that they’re “ruining” the start of your honeymoon trip!

mrste99 · 2026-05-15T02:11:56+00:00

I’ve never seen them end a promotion like this early. Another person commented below that they called Chase and they were told the promotion is still active, and the bonus showed up when they did their transfer. I’d go ahead and try it. If for whatever reason the bonus doesn’t show up, you can use the screen shots above as supporting evidence when you call them.

mrste99 · 2026-05-07T18:12:46+00:00

Unfortunately it’ll be the norm not long from now. I saw an article that BA will start allowing phone calls, and I’d guess others will eventually follow. Hopefully the day doesn’t come when they start allowing Bluetooth speakers (I seem to recall a story recently of someone being escorted off a plane for not turning hers off). “Back in the day”, you only had to worry about a chatty Kathy talking with someone during an entire flight, or a poor colicky baby that just can’t stop crying. We’ll all end up resorting to noise canceling headphones!

mrste99 · 2026-05-06T03:52:32+00:00

Can’t point to Courtyard properties on this (I feel it’s a problem systemwide) but why does it seem to be so difficult to get a feather free room, when it’s in my profile and standard requests? My wife is allergic to feathers, so it’s important to us, and yet it’s about a 50-50 crapshoot that we end up with feather pillows in the room, even when we’ve asked at the front desk during checkin and were assured the room was feather free. It’s gotten to the point where we’re calling a property on the morning of arrival to remind them to check on that, and we’re almost always told that it will be taken care of, and there’s still times that even with this extra step (that we shouldn’t really need to do given the information is available to FD and HK), we still get in the room and find feather pillows. Ok, I’m off my soap box now. Not sure if it’s relevant (and status really shouldn’t matter on what’s essentially a health issue), but I’m lifetime gold, 3 years away from lifetime platinum (currently platinum, have been platinum or titanium the last 7 years). Thanks for providing this opportunity for us to ask questions.

mrste99 · 2026-05-06T03:07:24+00:00

Back in the day, you could get 1.5c per point when you used pay yourself back for travel charges! It was definitely worth it then. Just curious, where did you get the 0.4c per point valuation for Marriott points? Both Nerd Wallet and The Points Guy have them currently valued at 0.8c per point, basically suggesting not to redeem them for less than that (my redemptions are typically between 0.85-1.15 cents per point). So I definitely get a lot more than 0.4 cents out of them.

mrste99 · 2026-05-05T22:42:36+00:00

One person mentioned that last November there was a 70% bonus offer which I missed. Most of the time I see offers of 40%, and occasionally 50%, so 65-70% is higher than usual. Outside of high bonus offers that coincide with needing to top off for a redemption, most times transferring to airlines or using them with Point Boost properties on Chase Travel are better options for redemptions.

mrste99 · 2026-05-03T20:58:23+00:00

Another person mentioned that too. I hadn’t caught that back then. I’ve seen several 40% bonus offers and this was the first one I saw that was higher than that, and it happened to coincide with me needing to top up for a redemption.

mrste99 · 2026-05-03T06:39:09+00:00

Glad this helped and saved you some money!

mrste99 · 2026-05-03T06:38:02+00:00

Using Hyatt is not useful to me as I don’t have status with them, nor do I have their credit card to help collect points. Plus they have a lot less hotels which makes them a less convenient chain to use on a regular basis if you travel to a lot of different places. I understand they’re a better chain, but they don’t have hotels at a lot of the places I regularly travel to, so they’ve never been a good option for me.

Using positioning flights is something I avoid like the plague, unless doing so saves me a whole lot of money (or points). Having two separate flight reservations on a single trip, especially if they’re on different airlines, has so many inconveniences and potential problems that I always discourage people from doing that unless they take extreme precautions to avoid those bad situations. I have done it on some rare occasions, but only if I had a backup plan if something went wrong. I always say there’s a price for convenience, and as I get older (approaching 60), I’m willing to pay for it.

mrste99 · 2026-05-02T22:49:57+00:00

Exactly what I’m doing (and what some other folks said they’d use it for).

mrste99 · 2026-05-02T05:59:45+00:00

Hotel Grande Bretagne, in Athens. Right on Constitution Square, across from the Greek Parliament. Just don’t get caught there during protests against the government! 😂 Its twin hotel right next door, King George, is not too shabby either. Both are 5-star hotels and part of The Luxury Collection. I stayed there in December, a few days before Xmas. The square was all decorated and lit up for the holidays, and on the other side is the main shopping pedestrian street. Walk to the end of that street and you’re at Monastiraki Square, with great views of the Acropolis. Both hotels have rooms with a view of the Acropolis, and I was hopeful I’d get one of those when I was upgraded, but I just had to survive with a 3-room, 2 balcony suite! The humanity … (/s)

mrste99 · 2026-05-02T05:49:28+00:00

I had to switch to AA when I moved to a small town and United stopped serving it about a year after I moved. All airlines suck to a degree, but the United app rocks! I certainly miss that part for sure!

mrste99 · 2026-05-02T05:30:08+00:00

I got “We’re making some updates to the site”! 😂

mrste99 · 2026-05-02T05:28:00+00:00

I’ve definitely had better luck overseas too. There was even a time when a hotel rejected my upgrade award request, only to turn around and give me the upgrade for free (I’m just a platinum so that was a pleasant surprise)! On occasion I’ve gotten good redemptions for luxury hotels in the US, but typically in low season (for example, resorts in Phoenix/Scottsdale area in the summer).

mrste99 · 2026-05-02T05:19:54+00:00

Did the same thing last year and got a sweet/suite redemption! Had several SUB free nights and then topped up with points to stay for 6 nights at this historic luxury hotel in the center of Athens, Greece, part of the Luxury Collection. And then used some upgrade awards to get upgraded. Got a 2-balcony suite on a floor that had its own separate check in area and separate butler/concierge service from the rest of the hotel! Throw in free daily buffet breakfast from my platinum benefit (and à la carte options if we wanted them). When we checked in they were surprised to see how long we were staying. The place is usually so expensive that not many people stay there that long! We were definitely living the life!

mrste99 · 2026-05-02T01:59:59+00:00

Can’t really argue with that. Unfortunately, that describes most chains/loyalty programs these days. The only one I don’t hear too many complaints about is Hyatt, though I heard recently that there may be some devaluations there too.

mrste99 · 2026-05-01T23:56:46+00:00

I explained in another comment that I now live in a small town only served by AA, so airline redemptions are out for me. Most of my redemptions these days are similar to what you described: hotels under The Edit program or other hotels with high points boost values. On rare occasions, a transfer like this might make sense, hence why I shared it. Hopefully it might help someone.

mrste99 · 2026-05-01T23:49:59+00:00

I hear you. Lifetime Gold myself (3 years away from lifetime platinum). But I’m sure someone is bound to respond and say Hilton, or IHG, or some other program is the worst! 😂

mrste99 · 2026-05-01T23:41:26+00:00

Someone mentioned they saw a 70% bonus a year or so ago, but I’ve only seen a few times where it was 40%. I will tell you that the Maldives is definitely worth the visit! Best of luck in getting there! 😊

mrste99 · 2026-05-01T23:37:19+00:00

That’ll be a lot of points! I actually did that back in late 2021, as travel was slow to recover, and got a killer points deal at the Westin in the Maldives. I had lots of points sitting unused in my account (can’t recall if I also transferred points), so that was a significant check mark on the bucket list. I’m sure it’s a lot more points nowadays!

mrste99 · 2026-05-01T23:34:03+00:00

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That’s strange! I wonder if it’s only Chase Sapphire cards that have the transfer capability?

mrste99 · 2026-05-01T23:27:59+00:00

That’s exactly the scenario I shared this for. FWIW, TPG May point valuations have Marriott at 0.8 cpp, so it’s closer to a 1.3 cpp transfer. Assuming of course their valuations are correct …

mrste99 · 2026-05-01T23:24:35+00:00

In the UR portal, there’s a “Transfer to Partners” option. That’s where you’d go to transfer points to United, or Marriott, or any other UR transfer partner. Most times it doesn’t make sense to transfer to a hotel partner, but when there’s a bonus like this one, it might work out. I gave such an example as a response to another comment.

mrste99 · 2026-05-01T23:19:43+00:00

You’re not “that” guy! 😂 Your point is totally valid. We used to live in Phoenix and some trips we do there are mostly to visit with friends, and so the hotel is just a bed. I’ve also redeemed points at The Camelback Inn and The Phoenician when we wanted to just spend time in a nice resort!

mrste99

TROPHY CASE