/r/askhotels
A place to ask any questions you might have about hotels.
Welcome to askhotels where you can ask your questions of the various hotel employees who are here and happy to assist you.
Hotel employees, please flair your username with Hotel Type/Your title/# of years in the industry.
Guests, feel free to flair yourself. You can include your usual type of travel (business, conventions, leisure, etc.) and whatever else you want us to know about you.
Reference guide for guests on job titles:
HK- Housekeeper
HHK- Head Housekeeper
MN- Maintenance or Engineering
FDA- Front desk associate or agent
NA- Night auditor
GSR or GSA- Guest Services Representative, Associate, or Agent
FDS- Front Desk Supervisor
FDM- Front Desk Manager
FOM- Front Office Manager
GM- General Manager
An 'A' at the front of a title typically stands for 'Assistant.'
Just a reminder to everyone, be civil!
Employees, be kind to our guests, they are our guests after all. Unless they're being needlessly shitty. Then have at them. Mods will turn a blind eye.
Guests, be kind to our employees! We're all here by choice to help you out!
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/r/askhotels
Which is better & why?
Here are the specific locations.
It'll be 3 adults and a toddler.
https://www.booking.com/hotel/us/ayres-suites-yorba-linda.html
https://www.booking.com/hotel/us/fairfield-by-marriott-inn-suites-anaheim-los-alamitos.html
Both have free parking and breakfast.
Price difference is only $30 total.
Hey all! So I’m just a Starbucks barista in a hotel right now, and I’ve only ever worked at Starbucks in my life at different locations, was a supervisor at one and then assistant manager at another. But because of my experience my manager at my current job has been trying to help me become one somewhere in the hotel because she thinks I’m wasting my talent being a barista. But my question is how is that job? Again I’ve only worked at Starbucks’s and don’t know much about how hotels work or anything outside of being a barista so transitioning to an assistant for Banquet sounds scary but I do like managing so
I have a destination wedding in Punta Cana, DR coming up at the end of this month. I originally booked my room at the hotel, which is an All Inclusive, for Wednesday-Sunday night.
After seeing flight prices to return to the US on Sunday, I found that returning Monday would be much cheaper. Unfortunately the hotel said that it was not possible to extend my stay by 1 night. However I have a friend that has a room booked at the hotel through Monday, and he said it would be fine if I stay the last night (Sunday) in his room.
My question is, is this okay? I have never been to an All Inclusive before, but I’m assuming my food and drink would have to be paid for and not included, since I’m technically not a guest anymore. Do most places offer day passes or options to pay in cash? I would be happy to pay the resort for whatever I eat/drink that day.
I just want to avoid a situation where I’m asked to leave and have to sleep at the airport. Any advice would be appreciated!
What craziness did you see?
Horror stories.
This morning, Friday, November 8, 2024 while staying at Residence Inn Chatsworth, as we grabbed food for breakfast, one of the breakfast attendant would make a disgusted face and kept staring at my husband and I as we were grabbing food (from the complimentary breakfast) to bring back to our room to eat. We have a baby and a dog so of course we wouldn’t eat breakfast in the lobby/sitting area out of respect for everyone else.
Anyway - the breakfast attendant kept staring at us as we were making breakfast to go and would make a disgusted face while we were packing our food. My husband asked him if there was a problem because he kept staring and the man stated that he is a “breakfast attendant and stares at everybody,” however while other people were making their plates, where the eggs and bacon were, I watched the breakfast attendant and his eyes follow to where my husband was going instead (which was by the yogurt section across the room.)
He stated that he is a breakfast attendant and stares at everyone but was also staring at me while I was sitting down waiting for my husband to get his food. This breakfast attendant did this yesterday, Thursday, November 7, 2024 but we tried to brush it off but he did it again today and it was very uncomfortable and absolutely upsetting. We asked for his name and walked to our hotel room.
Fast forward to now - our room rate is under an explore rate so my dad was informed what happened earlier this morning (assuming the breakfast attendant made a complaint), HOWEVER, in his complaint he stated that we were "stealing food and putting food in our pocket" when we were literally grabbing the food from complimentary breakfast and putting two bananas and yogurt in our pocket to bring back to our hotel room for my baby to eat. Mind you, this was only TWO bananas and TWO Greek yogurts. In his complaint, this breakfast attendant also stated that "someone had to come talk to us and security was involved" when no one came to talk to us and we were in our hotel room all day.
We feel unwelcome as if we were doing something wrong when we were literally grabbing food from the complimentary breakfast to eat in our hotel room. We have stayed at many Residence Inn’s and this was by far the most upsetting and uncomfortable experience by far.
I would also like to add that we were supposed to stay at a hotel in Costa Mesa and checked in around 2:45 pm on Wednesday, 11/6 but checked out around 4:30 pm on the same day of 11/6 because we decided to leave to find another hotel better suited for our needs. We chose Residence Inn Chatsworth because we felt it checked all of our boxes even though we already had to pay $240 for the hotel in Costa Mesa. Imagine how we feel now knowing we paid even more for this hotel in Chatsworth yet to be treated this way.
What should we do? Thank you in advance.
There is this big hotel near me with a nice lobby and bar where sometimes I will get a water bottle and just chill in there for some hours. I make sure to be always well behaved and decently dressed but I'm wondering if this is seen as undesirable by the staff.
What is everyone using for your Accounting software? Mine is horrible. Let me know your experience with yours. Thanks in advance!
Hey PEP users, I recently started working NA at a hotel and am trying to figure out how to change the settings in PEP for when I have to print housekeeping assignments out. What they’re supposed to have on them is the rm#, room type, service type, and if they have pets. mine has a bunch of random stuff on it that i don’t need, and is missing a majority of the things i do need. does anyone know how to go about changing what prints on these? i’m sure i’m just missing something but i cannot for the life of me find where the settings for it are. for reference, we assign per housekeeper and do the “print all assignments” method of making them, if that helps at all. Thanks lads.
Are hotels which are housing asylum seekers/ migrants losing their brand affiliation with Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt? (For example, because they may not be open to the public during that time)
I work in a hospitality case goods manufacturing company in India and we mainly export hotel furniture to the United States. We have done projects for independent hotels/motels as well as for hotel chains like Wyndham. I want to know the procedure that Avendra follows to onboard a company with them and procure from them. We have already filled out the prospective supplier form a couple of months back which was the initial step and got a confirmation that they received our data. But after that, there has been no response. If anybody has done this process or knows anything about it then it would be great if you could help me understand.
I'm looking to have alot of free time and just sit on my phone. Obviously I'll be looking fir a good neighborhood to avoid the jerks. Which company do you guys recommend? I hear the sma places make you do all tasks but the big places can be busy.
I have a question about credit card authorization forms. We work with a temporary housing company as part of an agreement with our brand. Their systems automatically generate credit card authorization forms for stays with full credit card numbers and email them to our front desk gmail. We recently converted to Canary for credit card authorization forms but they continue to send the forms via email. When I requested that they submit them via Canary they said they don't do that and only use their own forms. I know this is not PCI compliant so I am wondering how we should proceed. Can we be held liable even if we asked them to stop? Should I just delete them when we receive them to protect us? Any advice?
So I live in Hawaii in a big area for resorts and I want to pitch a business proposal for selling art and merchandise in one or more resorts and/or teaching art lessons to guests. I did have a job lined up with a big resort right before the pandemic to teach art classes and put some of my work in the resorts art gallery at the time, but covid happened and put a stop to the whole job. Who would be the right person to pitch the idea to and what do you think would be a good way to go about it? Should I just look up like who the General sales manager is at each resort and send them a quick message on LinkedIn or should I be calling a specific department for a meeting? I already have a website with my art prints and merchandise so I think it would be a huge convenience for the tourists who stay at their resort to not have to seek out the perfect unique souvenirs while they are on vacation and can just order them and have them shipped back home or to loved ones without having to stuff their suitcases with extra stuff before they leave. I also have a brochures made up that would be great if I could just get them handed out to the guests somehow.
Hi, I'm just wondering how other hotels communicate tasks from one shift to the next. Do you all just write it down in a notebook, use some type of task management software, or have any other system that you think works?
I'm often handed small notes or just told what to do in rush, which, if I don't immediately write down, I might forget... it's a bit messy, and I'd like to know what other ways it could be done.
If you have your own method of organizing your shift it would be great to know to
Thanksss
Just have a question as Oracle has been useless at providing support and their guides are fairly ineffective. So we are trying to process our commissions and it shows them all as $0.00 - do we have to manually attach each reservation to each TA in the bank account? Or is there a more efficient way of doing this? The reservations that exist in the list for attaching already have the TA and the commissionable rate attached and are found in the TA's profile as past stays. Even with a commission code attached to the TA and all that stuff the commission amount is not updating. Any ideas to make this smoother as the list shows 1000+ reservations?
I live fairly close to the airport in Austin, Texas and also fairly close to Rainey street and I feel like a night audit position would be perfect for me. I've always been a night owl and the idea of having downtime available to work towards a degree or certificate is really appealing to me. I've also recently began watching a few series in Spanish to try to learn the language and I think it'd be cool to be able to do that while on the clock.
I've seen a lot of night auditors say that they have around 3-4 hours of downtime during their shifts but I've also seen some say that they might be lucky to have 30 minutes to an hour of downtime. I'd like to try to find a place that is nice enough that it would deter seedier clientele (5,000+ trips as an Uber driver in Austin has taught me that sketchy people often stay at the cheapest hotels, might be a classist observation but it is what it is), but not so nice that the extra amenities (24 hr. valet, etc.) would leave me with little downtime.
Does anyone have any advice for getting a gauge of which locations would provide the most downtime while being pricey enough to deter sketchier customers?
Hello,
I recently stayed in a hotel, and during check-out as I asked for my invoice after paying my bills (room + extras), the receptionist wrote manually my credit cards number on his computer.
I asked why, and he said for the hotel but i shouldn’t worry because it’s masked anyway.
However, my colleagues who checked out at the same time didn’t get their CC number typed manually on the pc so thats why i am a bit confused.
Can someone please explain to me if this is normal ? Also, do they take all the numbers including the 3 digit code ?
Thank you in advance !
Edit : thank you all for your replies. It’s more clear now 😊.
Im currently working at the front desk in a 60 room 2star motel. Nothing fancy, very basic rooms. Mostly local guests. I get 60hrs a week w overtime. I have verified with my manager about the possibility of promotion to a higher role. They somewhat directly said theres no probability of raise/ promotion. Recently i did interview with a very well known hotel chain in manhattan, ny. They'll give me less hours. But theres a chance of promotion. Getting to a manager/ supervisor role and salary raise. Im very confused with this situation. As im looking for growth in this industry, but also im gona take a hit financially if i take the other job. Asking for any kind of advice, suggestions from my fellow Fd agents.
So I live in Hawaii in a big area for resorts and I want to pitch a business proposal for selling art and merchandise in one or more resorts and/or teaching art lessons to guests. Who would be the right person to pitch the idea to and what do you think would be a good way to go about it? I had a job lined up with a big resort right before the pandemic to teach art classes and put some of my work in the resorts art gallery at the time, but covid happened and put a stop to the whole job.
Hello,
I checked out of my hotel 2 days ago and they never charged me for my stay. They originally had the charge with the refundable deposit, but it dropped halfway through the trip. I just assumed they were going to recharge at check out, but after I checked my statement online, nothing pending or pulled. I tried calling them, but can't get a hold of them. I have the money saved to the side just in case, but I'm not sure what to do. I ran my debit card so something would have shown. Anyone else go through this? What happened?
I booked a hotel in London through Priceline. I deliberately booked a room with separate beds but when I received the confirmation email, it was a room with one bed. I have been trying to get this fixed but when I call Priceline customer service I get rerouted to Agoda and I have a hard time understanding the customer service rep because their accents are so thick. Is there any way I can get this problem resolved without being redirected to Agoda?
Launched a 20 room motel in May 2024. So far reviews have been good (4.9 on Google, 9.2 on Expedia). Our average occupancy is steadily growing but a lot of the bookings are last minute. Is this normal?
October occupancy (ended) 69% November occupancy(currently on books): 24% December occupancy: 6% January occupancy:0%
Median booking window for the past two months has been: September: 1 day October: 4 days
Based on our Expedia rep, the average booking window in our market is about 30 days. Summer is our low season and Fall-Spring is our high season.
Is this much last-minute business normal for a new property?
Thank you for taking the time to read and possibly help a girl out!
I am looking to transition from almost 10 years in video production/customer service to hospitality. My experience spans from Customer Support, Office Manager, Executive Assistant, and Production Manager. Additionally, I have worked in restaurants on the side since I was 18 (I am now 38). I am applying left and right to almost any entry to mid-level position without getting a single interview. I personalize every cover letter I send out and my resume looks pretty good (thanks resume genius). Is there something I'm doing wrong? Does anyone have any advice or a possible connection? I am about ready to linger in hotel lobbies/bars to meet someone.
I appreciate any help anyone can offer. Thank you so much!
Hi people!
I need the participation of entrepreneurs or managers of the hospitality industry to complete a very short survey. The goal is to collect real data on hospitality ventures and better understand the current challenges and opportunities.
🕒 Completion time: 2 minutes
🔍 Who can participate: If you are an entrepreneur, founder, manager, or someone in charge of running a business such as bars, restaurants, cafes, food shops, pubs, or accommodation, your experience is valuable!
It's not a scam, just a student in need...
Thank you so much for your help and for the valuable contribution offered to my research! 🙏
What’s the best method of spraying air/fabric refresher in a room after it’s been cleaned? Do you have your staff spray it in the air? Carpet while vacuuming? Bed linens? Trying to use the best method for the smell to linger.
I never worked as a bellman but I recently got extended an offer as a part time overnight bellman. In the interview I was told a different figure by the supervisor in training only to see way less on the offer letter.
I contacted the HR Coordinator and they confirmed the pay I was told was false.
I’m hoping tips will make up for the difference & after 1 year my pay will be increased 5 dollars. I still would like to accept but what are your thoughts?
The hotel is very large approx 1600 rooms It’s in Chicago
I’m mainly concerned about the take home pay for a bellman, I’d hate to have doubt just to end up making decent money through tips. Perhaps the supervisor knows something about the pay that the HR coordinator doesn’t, like a gratuity pool?
just wondering what the oven or warmer for cookies look like. We are new to brand and are not sure where it will go when it arrives. If you can drop a photo it would help a lot
What jobs can someone have with a bachelor's degree of Hospitality Management?
I am asking this because my boyfriend is studying for a bachelor's degree of Hospitality Management in college.
He finished 2 years of college so far.
He temporarily stopped his college studies to work as a stock clerk in a grocery store for 1 year.
After 1 year- he will return to college and finish his bachelor's degree.
(I already graduated college years ago and I have a bachelor's degree of Nutrition & Dietetics).
I thought that it is okay for me to ask this question here because this reddit community is about hotels.
EDIT: He said that he likes cooking and he said that he wants to be a chef.
I'm about to build a hotel from scratch in my little mountain tourist town. Is there any material to study to become a hotelier? I spent a few seasons in the front office but I would also need to know something about the back office and personnel management