[CathayLoyalist2]

Many years ago whilst walking around the grounds of what was then the Holiday Inn Slough/Windsor, now the Marriott, with a security team member a ground floor verandah door opened and a guest appeared carrying the television to his car. “hello hello I hope you are not stealing the tv are you” said the security guy. ” Certainly not” said the guest ” because it is included in the room rate isn´t it”?. A cursory glance inside the room saw an array of other hotel property ready for stealing. Needless to say he got his collar felt

[TiredOldHack2]

I’ve never really coveted anything on an aircraft enough to want to nick it.

Can’t remember if I’ve told this tale before, but….

My wife’s father spent a lifetime on ships. There was always a problem with passengers purloining crockery, cutlery, ashtrays, cruet sets, bigger items, etc from the dining room and elsewhere.

Of course, the crew almost always knew who it was, but did or said nothing. Bad for customer relations, don’t you know? But when the ship docked, and the first Customs guys came on board, the names of the thieves were surreptitiously handed over, and it was always their suitcases which were opened for ‘random checks’ by Customs. And there would be anything up to a full dinner service inside.

The guilty parties would squirm in embarrassment, and Customs would politely suggest that the items be handed over, and Customs would see they got back on board. Of course, nobody ever refused.

So the ship got its stuff back and the passengers were never placed in the situation of being challenged by a crew member.

[Swissdiver]

Oh dear…
Cashmere blankets in BA F? I have a couple. The wool ones on AF were not bad either…
But no cutlery for me.
As a kid, I took also a couple of life jackets. It was great fun to play with in the swimming pool. As for obvious reasons I was hiding them from my parents’ sight, I realised only later how reckless that was.
I love hotel’s toiletries as well.
Gosh… Abort mission! Abort…

[simeoncox]

Well, I’ll be blowed! Circular QANTAS cards. That takes me back to my youth. Those, and the 5kg / 10lb bags of frozen curried prawns approaching their expiry dates that my father would bring home from Catering.

[AnthonyDunn]

Errr, putting the ethics to one side for a moment, just what is that either in a hotel or onboard a plane or ship that I would want? Frankly, I even hesitate these days to accept the J-class toiletries bag. Why would I want a drawer full of them? Giving them away as a “present” is just so cheapskate as to be positively embarrassing. Nope, I don’t ever take things away with me and I am now looking at decluttering my life rather than adding to it.

[IanFromHKG]

My parents made quite a display (in the downstairs bog) of a large glass jar full of airline soaps for many years. They also served nuts at dinner parties or drinks evenings on lacquer mini-bowls liberated from JAL.

So far as I can recall anything I have liberated from an airline has been by accident (scooping up a safety card with my newspapers for instance) or was in the nature of a disposable item (such as a shaving kit) or intended for sole passenger use (such as slippers). Put I do emphasise that it is only so far as I can recall…!!

Mind you in the light of a report a while ago that a bar in some Mediterranean resort gave free drinks to people who produced an airline lifejacket, I always check on boarding that mine hasn’t been liberated by some previous passenger!

[capetonianm]

I worked as CPT station manager for an airline.

The Argentinians, strange people, had a reputation for prodigious sleight of hand which often resulted in their rooms at one of Cape Town’s 5 star hotels being stripped of movable items. Ashtrays and towels were considered fair game, but when bed linen, pictures, and telephones started going missing, the hotel’s management asked us to help. The passengers left the hotel in the morning and took a tour before coming to the airport. During this time housekeeping would list missing items from each room and send the list and corresponding names to us.

At the airport, we would watch and check against the list. Mr. ‘X’ would be asked to hand over the missing items, would open his suitcase, mumbling that he had no idea how they got in there, and hand over the items as we ticked them off the list.

One day ‘1 x 25″ Colour Monitor’ appeared on the list, which relieved the monotony of collecting stolen towels and ashtrays. This added a bit of spice and I hovered around to enjoy dealing with it personally. When the passengers hove into view with an enormous cardboard box marked ‘Fragile’, I told them we needed to check the contents, and that we would not carry it without ascertaining that it was correctly packed and not hazardous. The man refused to open it, saying it had ‘fragile souvenirs’ in it, whilst the wife affirmed that it contained some bottles of wine wrapped in their dirty clothes (no doubt to impart a delicate aroma to the wine). After a few minutes jousting, I played my card and told them I was aware of the contents. She disappeared whilst he looked at me questioningly when I told him I had an unpleasant surprise for him. What he had assumed to be a TV receiver was in fact a monitor for an in-house cable circuit, and quite useless anywhere else.

I gave him two choices, either to return it to the hotel or to have the police called. If he returned it to the hotel, he would miss the flight. If he didn’t return it to the hotel, he would be locked up and still miss the flight. He wisely chose the lesser of two evils and took a taxi back to the hotel. Back at the airport, dishevelled and drenched in sweat, a record 30 minutes later, he was convinced he was too late for the flight. I handed him their boarding cards and let him dash off to find out for himself that the flight was 3 hours delayed, a fact I’d been aware of since early that day.

I also contacted customs at their destination to make sure they received ‘special’ service on arrival there.

[Sanran]

In my short experience I noticed that asking was always the good option: I asked once on SQ if I could take home the tea spoon and the very nice lady gave me one full set of clean cutlery. After a while she came back and asked if didn’t want a second one, in order to have the second one for my wife (back then my girlfriend).
With the same airline I asked the crew why they weren’t providing to F bathroom the moisturizing spray they have in J. The steward told me “give me a minute”, went in J, took a new one a brought to me.
On LX I asked if I could get exceptionally a second pijama for a friend of mine and the crew member told me “of course yes, do you want the amenity kit too ? it would be a pity to bring him only the pijama!).

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