10 Awesome Insider Hotel Secrets For Your Next Visit
Are you hunting for a Hotel room and have been informed the Hotel is full? Or do you want to be upgraded to a better room? Maybe the Best Available Rate (BAR) is not the best rate for your budget. Is it possible to get the room for half the price?
We as humans tend to take verbal and visual information for granted. If the person at the Call Center tells you the Hotel is full, then most people will accept this. And if your favorite booking site tells you that the Hotel is full, they will also accept this. Or the Call Center and booking site might tell you there were no upgrades available for the period you were looking to make a reservation.
Working at a Call Center myself, our primary goal was to sell or upsell room nights. We provided room nights based on the Hotel’s inventory. If the booking system told us there was no more inventory left for the period, then we had no way to override this. If you were a decent or good Reservation Agent, you would provide the customer with alternatives.
Here is a list of Insider Hotel Secrets.
1. Call the Hotel
Working both at a Call Center and Hotels, I learned that the Hotel has much better control over the inventory itself. Cancellations and changes happen all the time. The only way to find this out is to call the Hotel directly.
Calling the Hotel directly is always the best way to ensure that everything is set up to meet your expectations. One note here is to make sure you reached the hotel’s in-house reservation or the front desk. Some Hotels will, at times, direct their in-house reservation calls to the Call Center. There were several times I responded to a call as I was at the hotel’s in-house reservation desk. The Call Centers’ booking systems provided us with a lot of tools that made it easy to provide fairly accurate Hotel information. Though I was still looking at the same inventory as if the customer would call the Call Center.
2. Go for Direct Bookings
I am not one of the Hoteliers who will tell you to avoid Hotels.com, Booking.com, or Expedia.com. I would rather present Hotels as sustainable, affordable, and competitive alternatives with a unique ability to personalize the guest experience.
Online booking services have positioned themselves in ways where customers tend to believe this is where they will get the best rates today. Customers today are often put in a scenario where the booking service uses an urgency strategy. I don’t know how often I see “only 1 room left”, or 5 people booked this room last hour. People tend to make the reservation in fear that the Hotel is getting full. Just like the Call Center works out from a set inventory same is the case with online booking services.
The best alternative here is to go directly to the hotel’s website and check their availability, or, as mentioned, call the Hotel.
3. Full is not the same as Sold Out
What does a Hotel website, online booking site, and Call Center tell you Hotel is full? Many Hotels have set off some rooms for their Platinum and Gold member, or others who reserved a room but then turned out not to need the room.
I worked at a Hotel where it was not uncommon on very busy days that the Hotel was overbooked. This meant we had more bookings than available inventory. Sometimes this could be caused by that a room was taken out of service or was in out-of-order status. It was not uncommon for out-of-service rooms to be put in this status for minor incidents.
Out-of-order rooms are typically more complex. I went through a renovation process with one Hotel where available inventory was a lot less than the total amount of rooms. In this process, a certain block of rooms was put in out-of-order status for renovation purposes.
In some situations, the Hotel has a certain room of flexibility to accommodate customers. Here is often best to call the Hotel itself to check the status with the front desk. Or if you are close to the Hotel, then it will not hurt to stop by and check.
4. Upgrade is a courtesy
The most basic rule here is to Ask Nicely. Upgrades are always courtesy of the Hotel, never a requirement.
If you have booked a basic room at the absolute lowest rate through an online booking service and request an upgrade, don’t be disappointed if you get turned down. Of course, the Hotel will still do everything in its power to make sure you still have an awesome experience.
Many Hotels tend to reward Direct Bookings versus Online Booking services. When you do a Direct Booking, make sure to use the comment / special request field. Here, it is ok to request an upgrade. Make sure you add a compelling reason.
And if the Hotel can grant your request, please show some gratitude.
5. Room change
It was not uncommon that guest would check into their room and it was not what they anticipated.
The solution here is the same as for upgrades: Ask Nicely. Often, we could move a guest like this to the Loyalty Members’ floors. Here, they would receive some perks that would often compensate for their initial experience.
In the case where there was no other room to move the guest to, then the Hotel has to provide alternative solutions. Often, these can be alternatives like Free Breakfast/Lunch, accommodating late checkout requests, access to Loyalty Member floor, or in some instances room discount.
6. Best Day for a reservation
I don’t know how many reports, studies, research, and articles I have read that will tell the customer what the Best Day for a Hotel reservation is.
Customers make reservations every day! The best day is when you are ready. Hoteliers are always ready to serve you.
7. Out of service room
As indicated, Hotels often have rooms in their inventory that are taken out of service for minor incidents. It can be that the in-room TV is not working, no desk in the room, someone checked into the room and decided to check out of the Hotel after a few hours, etc.
In the incident with an in-room TV not working, the Hotel can provide this room for a discounted rate if the customer is ok with no working TV in the room. If the Hotel has a night Housekeeping crew, they can clean the room that unexpectedly became available.
Allowing customers to utilize a room that lacks an in-room TV is an extraordinary circumstance, and both parties should sign an agreement about the situation.
As long as the Hotel has a standard room available, an out-of-service room is not part of the available inventory.
8. Room Block availability
A lot of Hotels depend on events or groups to set of a block of rooms for either the event or an occasion.
Here, Hotels often experience cancellations or someone will not show for the event or the occasion.
I worked for a Hotel that had a contract with some airlines. And the Hotel would always set a block of rooms for the airlines. There were times when some of the flights got canceled for various reasons; the most common reasons were related to weather. In these incidents, the Hotel got unexpected inventory available.
This illustrates why the customer should call the Hotel directly. The Hotel inventory is always dynamic and never static.
9. Flirt
Hoteliers love a happy and positive customer. Customers with a happy and positive attitude are more likely to get an upgrade.
It is always a smart move to be happy and positive, and it is ok to flirt a little. Treat the front desk like you want to be treated yourself. Most front desk members today are empowered to make decisions that will make it an extraordinary Hotel experience for you.
10. Get onboard with electronic billing and Social Media
We live in the technology age, and most travelers today travel with multiple smart devices. Get your bill sent to your email or Smartphone.
This will help you and the next guest have the best possible experience during your stay.
Some Hoteliers might say, “Wait a minute,” here. They indicate check-out is the best time to learn how their stay was, and give the guest some affirmations that will get them coming back again to the Hotel.
And this used to be the case. With Social Media and New Media, we now have new tools available that allow us to capture important information before and during the stay. The same tools are also very effective for customer retention.
Today, customer will not only call the Hotel but also use their Social Media networks to reach the Hotel directly. Soon, new demands will require Hotels to make Direct Booking more accessible from Chatbots.
I have given you some Insider Hotel Secrets to take with you for your next stay.
Have fun and enjoy your experience.
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Related article: The Genesis of AI in Hospitality: A Prelude to Personalization
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With a passion for revolutionizing the hospitality industry, I help hoteliers work smarter, not harder, by embracing AI, digital transformation, and innovation. My mission? To bring people and technology together to transform hotels, creating uncontested market experiences through service, confidence, cooperation, and purpose – empowering your team to elevate the guest experience and community.
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