[MartynSinclair]

The other part of the discussion is hotels, especially conference/city hotels, flex their prices during busy periods, by up to 500%. I see nothing wrong with hotel guests encouraging the hotel to provide advantageous pricing when the hotels are empty?

I do not see it being anything other than supply and demand, but in the guests favour. If the hotel is less than full, they have say 35-40% of their rooms empty 7 days out, I don’t see anything wrong with asking for a special rate for a 1 am arrival, especially as the overall stay is for multiple nights.

I also believe brand / company loyalty should generate benefits, both financial and other…. How I entertain a client, absolutely depends on his/her value to my business.

[GivingupBA]

[quote quote=948828] ….I don’t see anything wrong with asking for a special rate for a 1 am arrival, especially as the overall stay is for multiple nights. I also believe brand / company loyalty should generate benefits, both financial and other…. How I entertain a client, absolutely depends on his/her value to my business.[/quote]

Certainly I agree, there is nothing whatsoever wrong with “asking for a special rate for a 1 am arrival”. And also certainly “brand / company loyalty should generate benefits”. For the hotel your stay and any requests you make are purely business, so they can and will deal with any requests on a purely business basis. Many people make such requests in top hotels – and depending on their status with the hotel, often get them – and so they should. You were not asking the hotel for a favour.

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Montysaurus

[canucklad]

[quote quote=948828]The other part of the discussion is hotels, especially conference/city hotels, flex their prices during busy periods, by up to 500%. I see nothing wrong with hotel guests encouraging the hotel to provide advantageous pricing when the hotels are empty?[/quote]

I agree, however when it comes to supply and demand I’d fire in a caveat ….

It’s one thing flexing a rate to mirror market value, it’s a totally different practice for hotels (and airlines ) to have algorithms that push up room prices to literally extortionate prices .

Arguably the worst city in the UK for this practice is Manchester
The price flux on a Champions League night and a normal night is staggering .

I have an instinctive dislike of state intervention through legislation, yet Budget hotels charging 5* prices should be condoned .

[MartynSinclair]

[quote quote=948916]Arguably the worst city in the UK for this practice is Manchester
The price flux on a Champions League night and a normal night is staggering .[/quote]

@canucklad – try an exhibition town like Frankfurt. My 2 regular hotels, had rates between Euros 120 and 550, depending on the weeks exhibition.

In my example, the discussion is not so much about the hotel having to block off a room for a 1 am arrival, but more about releasing an otherwise empty room to gain some additional revenue – there is a big difference.

[canucklad]

[quote quote=948920]My 2 regular hotels, had rates between Euros 120 and 550,[/quote]

Yes, and what that jump in rate normally means is that those hotels price themselves out of most companies travel policy . And arguably risk repeat business , after all you could stumble across a hidden gem , maybe a boutique hotel that will change your habits.

It’s my company policy that scuppers me, specifically when I visit Manchester . My travel pattern would normally be Sunday night to Friday morning. However if Man U are at home during the week , the spike (massive) on a Wednesday night precludes me from a week’s stay at a central hotel, including the HIX . on Oxford Street

£100ish a night hiked up to £4-500 per night is ridiculous and leaves me hunting down hotels in Stockport instead.

[MartynSinclair]

[quote quote=948672]There’s an element of ‘Do you know who I am?’ added to the whole situation, when loyalty cards and personal relationships are flashed in order to get a better deal. If that works, why not go for it – but seriously, when the olives disappear from the salad, don’t complain. Simply remember that cost-cutting by service providers is also, in part, a reaction to penny-pinching from customers.[/quote]

So there is really no difference in the hotels taking advantage in supply and demand by increasing their prices in the busy times and guests taking advantage in the slack / empty periods by asking for discounts… I do not think DYKWIA really comes into it… nothing wrong about using loyalty as a bargaining tool…

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cwoodward, ASK1945, canucklad, DerekVH

[canucklad]

[quote quote=948925]I do not think DYKWIA really comes into it… nothing wrong about using loyalty as a bargaining tool…[/quote]

Absolutely, hotels shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it both ways
If I had a dollar for the amount of times my upgrade entitlement has been replaced with a rotting bowl of fruit as compensation, I’d be able to buy a hotel of my own.

[st1969]

So there is really no difference in the hotels taking advantage in supply and demand by increasing their prices in the busy times and guests taking advantage in the slack / empty periods by asking for discounts… I do not think DYKWIA really comes into it… nothing wrong about using loyalty as a bargaining tool…[/quote]

I agree – if the reason for asking for a discount is because it is low season/low occupancy then that’s absolutely fair enough, and sure, use loyalty as a bargaining tool.

But the reason for asking for a discount wasn’t pitched as such in the original post.

The discount was being asked for because the client would arrive late at night and didn’t feel they should pay the full night rate. In this instance, I feel that there is some DYKWIA, simply because (in my opinion) the justification for a discount (arriving at 1am) is unreasonable. But hey, I say tomayto, others say tomahto – let’s not call the whole thing off, let’s just agree that in life, it is generally better to ask for a discount 🙂

[IanFromHKG]

st1969, please go back and read my post in which I laid out (I thought) a cogent argument for dynamic timing. Nothing DYKWIA, nothing asking hotels to give up revenue, all about serving customers’ needs.

I know that if one of my preferred hotels in Mumbai had offered this, I would undoubtedly have put them at the top of my list. Who knows, they might even have gained MORE revenue! Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that if they had charged $250 for the 19-hour stay from 2am to 9pm, instead of a “normal” day rate of $200 from 3pm to 10am, I would still have chosen it against having to pay 2x$200 for two nights. However, when I left at 9pm the room would have been empty and they could have charged another customer $250 to check in at 2am, five hours later, and hey presto, a 25% uplift in revenue! Even if I were staying two nights, I would be paying $500 rather than $600 but again, the hotel would have the opportunity to charge another customer $250 for the night I left – still a significant uplift in revenue. Customers are happy, their employers are happy, the hotel revenue managers are happy….

[capetonianm]

Not sure if previously mentioned, but :
dayuse.co.uk
or dayuse.com
might be helpful sometimes.

[EasternPedlar]

The hotel industry is caught up in its traditional ways, and is not addressing the needs of travellers. There are a number of cities where people arrive early in the morning, usually because of time zone or geographical circumstances. Blindly sticking to the 2 pm checkin – 12 noon checkout regime makes little sense. It galls me to have to pay for 2 nights when the total amount of time I spend in a property is less than 24 hours (e.g. 3 am flight arrival and 5 am flight departure, where I will be in the hotel from 4 am day 1 to 3 am day 2).

The hotel industry can offer any number of explanations, but we know that the real reason for this regime is that the maths works in their favour. That’s why very few properties offer a 24-hour stay.

The Metropolitan in Bangkok used to offer an early check in for about $50 (from recollection) and I was happy to take it as my flight inevitably landed at 6 am. More hotels need to recognise the traffic pattern in their cities and offer traveller friendly solutions.

There’s a huge opportunity for a disruptor to come in and shake up the industry!

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Jacob

[AFlyingDutchman]

[quote quote=949671]The hotel industry is caught up in its traditional ways, and is not addressing the needs of travellers. There are a number of cities where people arrive early in the morning, usually because of time zone or geographical circumstances. Blindly sticking to the 2 pm checkin – 12 noon checkout regime makes little sense. It galls me to have to pay for 2 nights when the total amount of time I spend in a property is less than 24 hours (e.g. 3 am flight arrival and 5 am flight departure, where I will be in the hotel from 4 am day 1 to 3 am day 2).

The hotel industry can offer any number of explanations, but we know that the real reason for this regime is that the maths works in their favour. That’s why very few properties offer a 24-hour stay.

The Metropolitan in Bangkok used to offer an early check in for about $50 (from recollection) and I was happy to take it as my flight inevitably landed at 6 am. More hotels need to recognise the traffic pattern in their cities and offer traveller friendly solutions.

There’s a huge opportunity for a disruptor to come in and shake up the industry![/quote]

On the basis of what you are saying is that the only travellers using hotels in a given city are long haul passengers whose arrival times might mirror what you are saying. But what about those passengers flying domestically in India per se, or for those passengers arriving in Singapore or Bangkok or any number of cities 24 hours a day, they are using hotels as well. What you are suggesting hotels do would be managerial nightmare. Most hotels operate skeleton crews from 11PM until early morning, to accommodate what you are asking would require hotels to change their staffing levels during those times, increasing their costs, which would of course then trickle down to the price and increased pricing. Why not ask why long haul flights are scheduled to arrive at such un-godly hours? I dont hear anyone saying flights should change their arrival/departure times to be more civil or caring to our body clocks?

[IanFromHKG]

And if the hotels can charge a premium for doing so, AFD, where is the problem? I can assure you the Indian hotels I stayed in were far from skeleton-staffed at the times I checked in or out. And as to your question about flight times – really?! Do you not understand the drivers for flight times? Especially for business travellers…

[TominScotland]

AFlyingDutchman, you make very valid points. EasternPadlar assumes that hotels have capacity to accommodate his early check in – when full or close to 100% occupancy, guests have to check-out and rooms need to be serviced before new arrivals can be accommodated – hece the 2pm check-in. In my experience, some hotels have an early check-in charge when they have capacity, which is fair enough but most will check you in early on a complementary basis or give access to day facilities.

EasternPadlar complains about two nights’ charges for truncated nights. From an hotel’s perspective, these are sold rooms and it is not their fault if airline schedules mean you cannot gain the full benefit of the rooms. Servicing a room when you have slept in it for 4 hours is little different to 9 hours so the costs will be the same.

As to airline schedules, arrival and departure times to/ from the Middle East, South Asia and Africa and elsewhere to/ from Europe are largely dictated by European airport curfews – we recently waited fully boarded in Bahrain and the pilot explained that we could not leave because a short flying time would get us there before 6am as Bahrain is not one of BA’s sanctioned early arrivals.

[IanFromHKG]

Another point to raise here is that having dynamic timing would allow hotels to spread their housekeeping duties over a longer period, rather than having a mad rush to service all rooms in a single five-hour window… That could reduce the burden on laundry and other services, reduce the need to stockpile so much linen, and so forth. I am sure there are other ways a hotel could actually manage its inventory and staging better.

I realise it’s not a perfect parallel, but you don’t see car rental companies insisting that people collect their cars after 3pm and return them before 10am, or charging them on that basis, yet the cars also have to be cleaned and checked between each rental. Scale that up and the issues aren’t that different…

[Author]

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