Hot hotel tips

Tip the housekeeper
Knowing people in high hotel places is fine, but it also pays to know — and to reward — crucial folks much further down the food chain, specifically, the housekeeper. No single person has more impact on the quality of your stay than the person tasked with keeping your room fresh and clean. And in case you’ve forgotten, these women — and most housekeepers are still women — are often minimum-wage workers.

The messier you are, the more you want to tip. The more services you desire — extra towels, off-hours cleanups — the more you want to tip. And leave your tip every day, not at the end of your stay, because the housekeeper may change from day to day. How much to tip? I never leave less than $5 a day, more if I’ve been particularly adept at leaving newspapers and other bits of paperwork strewn about. Leave it on your pillow, so the housekeeper knows that the spiff is for her.

Winning the rate game
There is no single best way to get the lowest nightly rate. Anyone who says otherwise is a fool — or the marketing executive at a major hotel company responsible for crafting the chain’s exception-laden “lowest-price guarantee.”

Generally speaking, however, I start at the hotel chain’s proprietary Web site. They most often have the best nightly rate — usually in the form of a nonrefundable, immediate-payment-required, Web-only price. And most major chains wield a powerful stick: Your elite-status benefits and perks only apply if you book directly.

When I don’t have a specific hotel chain or property in mind, I will check with Orbitz.com, which I find more convenient than rivals such as Travelocity.com or Expedia.com. I avoid Hotels.com like the plague because I have always found its prices too high and its payment policies onerous. And I won’t use blind booking sites like Priceline.com or Hotwire.com because I want to know what hotel I’m considering before I book it. Another third-party Web site I can recommend: Quikbook.com. It specializes in independent hotels and most of its participating properties do not require advance payment.

How about the old travel chestnut that insists you must call the hotel directly to get the best rate? Time has passed it by. Most major hotel chains now work off of a centralized database of rates. In fact, many properties don’t even have an on-site reservations department anymore — when you call, they connect you to their chain’s reservations call center. If you do call direct, remember that phone agents are trained to quote the highest nightly rate first. You’ll have to take them down the “price ladder” rung by rung by repeatedly asking, “Is that the lowest price you have?”

The fine print ...
If you confront a sellout situation at a hotel — a slight possibility given the near-record occupancies at U.S. properties — ask if an “out of service” room is available. That’s industry jargon and it means you’re willing to accept a room that has been temporarily taken out of general inventory due to a small flaw that needs repair.

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