Comment by Spooky23
2 days ago
The hotel industry is bizarre. I feel like we hit this maxima circa 2005 where prefabrication made for the shockingly cheap/nice Hampton Inn style hotels in the US.
Now those places anre on the wrong side of the depreciation curve, and every chain hotel is a little worse every day. They bill upfront since COVID, don’t clean the room, shrink the towels and deliver a shittier level of service. I was at a Marriott recently where the room had no linens - no towels, sheets, pillows, nothing.
I called and was instructed to do everything myself, and the hotel GM’s attitude was that “shit happens”.
I've traveled more recently for a new job and the downgrade in hotels has been the same. I've stayed at a la quinta that was no better than a motel 6 with a barely cleaned room and towels that were more like old wash cloths, a Marriot down the road from raven's stadium in Baltimore that had the stupid open shower thing and room stank like mold, and the surprising belle of the ball has been a best western "plus" which has essentially been what a midrange Hilton/Marriot was just a few years ago.
I’d assume that was a franchise hotel, and calling Marriott corporate would have got you some compensation at minimum.
I did. They told me to go pound it and talk to the GM. I ended up getting 15,000 points.
I probably have ~100 hotel nights a year, that’s only happened once. But the experience is dramatically worse since Covid. They used it as an excuse and then re-baselined the service. Worse product, worse services, higher prices.
The bottom quintiles saw their wages rise a lot corresponding to every other group. You’re just seeing the results of the fact that people are too costly to spend on this.
The change in baseline provision is certainly true. I did a similar number of nights to you this year, but have certainly never encountered a lack of linens and would consider a credit card chargeback if I ever did.
Yeah, I'm sure I've spent hundreds of nights in Marriott properties and never not had linens.