40 awful cheats awaiting you in hotels

We suggest you familiarize yourself with the 40 terrible confessions of travel industry professionals who have described how they cheat travelers on vacation.

Tourism workers believe that on our planet a traveler has not yet been born who could not be deceived at a hotel or during an excursion. It will be useful for you to find out about this.

Superior rooms are available at no extra charge.

The most pointless waste of money is an extra charge for an improved category room. There are plenty of reasons to upgrade the room for free: a honeymoon, a regular customer, a family anniversary - yes, anything.

Tourists themselves are constantly using this. The main thing is to warn the hotel about the so-called anniversary in advance. My colleague and my wife spent five years in a row traveling to different hotels on their honeymoon.

Alex, front office manager

If you book a hotel room directly, you can stay without a room

Hotels love direct bookings: in this case there is no need to pay a commission. But if suddenly there are problems with available numbers (a sudden group arrival or just peak dates), direct orders will be the first to suffer from this. It is easier for a hotel to sacrifice one tourist than to abandon a group or spoil relations with a large supplier.

Prapa, Special Reservation Manager

In a network hotel, you overpay for advertising

It is believed that chain hotels and large hotel brands guarantee the customer a certain level of quality, which is called the "network standard." In fact, the same people work in small private hotels and large hotel chains, there are no secrets of the network service. Just hotel chains spend incomparably more money on advertising.

Andreas, network hotel sales director

Positive reviews about hotels are written by the staff themselves, and negative reviews are written by competitors.

Everyone went crazy with these reviews. Management is confident that positive reviews increase hotel profits by 15%, and negative reviews lead to ruin, so customers always try to squeeze positive reviews.

Alex, front office manager

Do not believe the photos in the catalogs and on the hotel website

Photos on the hotel’s website or in the catalogs of tour operators can differ significantly from what the client sees in reality. However, there are such hotels, and among the very expensive ones, which generally do not post photos of some categories of rooms in the public domain.

Always check what exactly the category category of the room you have booked looks like: read the room description, look for pictures on the Internet. And it happens like this: a person thinks that he will live in a luxurious villa with a swimming pool, and he has a reserved cottage in the backyard or a room in the main building. And the villa, which he saw in the photo, costs a thousand dollars a day more.

Andrey, hotel sales manager

Always discuss room discounts.

When the hotel is loaded with guests, for example, seventy percent, we can safely count on a discount. The main thing is to politely ask.

Janis, hotel reservation manager

The tourist will go to rest not where he wants, but where necessary

Many managers are afraid of tourists, but I have everything flying where I need to. Turkey is on fire - welcome to Turkey! Hotels in Thailand gave a discount on accommodation? You will go to Thailand, how nice.

This is called reorientation in our country. A good manager can reorient about half of the tourists who turn to him in the right direction.

Sergey, travel agency manager

Check the final price of the room

Many hotels indicate on their websites the price of a room without VAT and breakfast, in order to look more affordable, then they try to screw something else on these extra charges: a brazen 10 percent service charge, all sorts of invented “service taxes and infrastructure support fees”.

If you enter into uncompromising correspondence with a hotel that really wants to sell its rooms, all these taxes on maintenance and infrastructure fees can be canceled.

Alexey, manager at a travel company

Avoid coupon sites

A few years ago, couponers became a popular tool for cheating guests. The guest buys a coupon that is profitable for him, and only then he finds out that everything is not as promised: the coupon does not apply to all numbers, or not to all dates, or something else is wrong with this coupon.

Mikhail, Hotel Marketing Director

Design Hotels - Scam

Over the past 15 years, hoteliers have become fashionable: they saved on room decoration - and now there is a progressive design hotel. In fact, design hotels are a dump of other people's ideas, adapted for the hotel business from the economy.

Is it expensive to paint the walls every year? We will plaster and cover with wax, or even just leave the brickwork without finishing. The owners are happy because it is cheap, and tourists believe that they have joined something fashionable.

In a design hotel, any devastation can be attributed to the features of the design decision.

Andreas, network hotel sales director

Hotels do not hesitate to bribe managers of travel agencies

In recent years, there has somehow become a particularly large number of hotels. Therefore, they try to motivate travel agency managers as they can. Who offers money, who tries to buy free accommodation.

Someone buys loyalty as gifts: Bulgari Hotels recently recently offered watches as a present for four orders to managers. In my opinion, the tourism industry is the most corrupt industry in the world.

Sergey, travel agency manager

Minibar must be checked upon check-in

When checking in, it is better to ask the maid to check the minibar again: often after the check-out, the maids forget to replenish it, and then automatically record the missing drinks at the expense of the newly settled tourists.

It is not easy to prove that these drinks were not drunk by you. In general, you need to check what is written to your number. We have had occasions when random acquaintances of such restaurant orders “gave” customers that their mother was dear.

Marianne, senior maid

Discount cards for tourists - another way to earn

Discount cards distributed by tour operators at resorts are a pass to establishments with overpriced prices. Everything can be bought much cheaper if you hide the discount card away. The main thing is to bargain harder, you're on vacation!

Alena, concierge

Show respect to the administrator during registration

Do not, for example, talk on the phone during the check-in. This call, which is probably not very important, will end in five minutes, but for the fact that you ignore me and perceive it as a machine for issuing room keys, I will make you remember your stay for a long time. In a bad way.

Valentine, hotel administrator

Deposit at the hotel is better to pay in cash

Before checking in, a tourist is asked to make a deposit or provide a credit card number. It’s better to say that there is no card, and pay this deposit in cash. Not only can these cards be stolen, so hotel post-factum can deduct anything they want from this card.

We had a case: a tourist has already left, and the tour operator refused to pay for it, it seems like there is no money, we are bankrupt. So our accounting department, using the data left, deducted the full cost of living from his card.

Irina, reception manager at a five-star hotel

Two of the casket

When the hotels are a couple of hours drive from the airport, there is a danger of suffering from the hands of "two of the casket." Arriving on vacation are loaded in large buses, and their luggage is folded into the luggage compartment. Hand luggage also goes there: do not drag it with you on the bus!

In the corner of the luggage compartment there is an inconspicuous box - well, there are tools there or a spare, damn it. When the bus leaves, two teenagers get out of the box, who during the transfer open all the bags and suitcases.

Electronics, expensive sunglasses, swimwear - everything folds into a box, and bags and suitcases are neatly closed. When a tourist discovers the loss, his laptop will be in some inconspicuous Thai or Turkish pawnshop. This can be prevented by packing the luggage with plastic wrap, and the most valuable thing to take with you on the bus.

Egor, transferman

Maids steal - this is no secret

Do not leave money and valuables in your room in sight: maids steal even in very expensive hotels. Keep everything in a safe! Some steal every little thing: lace underwear, cosmetics, but most purposefully seek money and jewelry.

As a rule, they take a couple of bills from a bundle so that it is not noticeable. The most experienced do not take prey with them at all, but hide somewhere in the room. If the client has discovered the loss before departure, he is offered to search in the room. Found - the employees have nothing to do with, they will also make me apologize. I didn’t find it - they calmly take it after the check-out.

If the same maid has several complaints about the loss of work, she is fired. After that, she settles in another hotel, and everything repeats again.

Marianne, senior maid

Always close the room door at least for the heck, especially if you are with children

Oh, you have no idea how many random and unkind people can hang around even the most respectable hotels! Doors must be closed, and for children to look in both eyes - it will be almost impossible to find the loss.

Amalia, administrator at a city hotel in London

Daily change of linen - a myth

In those five-star hotels where I worked, the used sheets for cleaning were first straightened and rearranged on a new one, then turned over to the other side, and then they changed the sheets on which they were sleeping, with those that were covered.

The guest had already left by that time. However, if we noticed our trick, we had to change the linen honestly.

Marianne, senior maid

Once again: do not be rude to staff. Never!

My colleague was somehow offended by a guest, so she washed the bathroom floor with a towel and hung it back on the hook. Even offended maids brush a toilet bowl or sink with a guest’s toothbrush (if you suspect, do this: lather the toothbrush left at the hotel and if the soap on the bristles remains after cleaning the room, then everything is in order).

Maids must always leave a tip, and, if possible, do not need to turn your number into a pigsty.

Linda, senior maid

Hotel laundry - a branch of hell on Earth

Never take expensive items to the hotel laundry! In the best case, you will get back jeans with ironed arrows or a shirt with a burnt pocket. Or maybe just a thing to replace.

Instead of a suit that was handed over to us, someone brought an old jacket to us. He began to be indignant: I, says, had a branded thing, and here - the devil knows what! So the maids went, ripped off the label of the same brand, sewed on this jacket and brought it back.

Robert, Hotel Manager

They can sleep in your bed. Just know it!

If I’m very tired, and ahead is cleaning a large room, which gives me more time than usual, I can take a nap on the guest’s bed. Colleagues also do this.

And it also happens that we go to the toilet directly in the room, but this is only if there is absolutely no time to get to the restrooms for staff.

Nelly, a maid in a large Turkish hotel

Speak loudly

Of course, it’s unpleasant when they yell at you, but very often for a tourist it is the only way to get what you want. If you mumble: “Excuse me, please, could you return the money for the excursion”, they will forget about you in a couple of minutes.

Inga, hotel guide

Always use disposable cups.

We usually do not wash glasses and cups, but simply rinse them under a stream of hot water right in the sink of the room. There is no visual difference.

Nelly, a maid in a large Turkish hotel

Corporate car rental - uniform ripping

For ourselves and our tourists, we always reserve cars with holiday brokers such as Holiday Autos: this turns out to be 20% cheaper on average. You can order cars through a travel agency (then the agent will receive a commission) or on the website of an auto broker.

If you book with an auto broker, you can even find an option without prepayment.

Tatyana, senior manager at a travel company

Hotels without rats in the tropics do not exist

If you have not seen a rat in your room, this does not mean that it is not there. It is impossible to protect the hotel with a large tropical garden, a kitchen and a bunch of rooms from rats or snakes. Some hotels to fight rats let stray cats enter their territory, but most catch rats for glue and then turn in carcasses for disposal.

Robert, Hotel Manager

Maids play things forgotten at the hotel in a lottery

Most often, guests forget all kinds of nonsense: shorts, chargers, even bottles of vodka. But sometimes their players, smartphones and tablets remain in the room.

Typically, tourists turn to their tour operator, who sends a guide, picks up the forgotten and transfers it with other tourists. But some things remain unclaimed. The maids then play them out in a win-win lottery.

Robert, Hotel Manager

Hotel minibar - a real cemetery for soda and chocolate

Maids are required to ensure that the minibar does not have expired products, but many simply forget about it. Some chocolates have been in minibars for years.

Marianne, senior maid

No need to pay for watching movies in the room

This is an extremely simple trick, but for some reason few people know about it. First you calmly watch any movie, then call the reception and claim that you accidentally clicked on it in the menu. Or that he passed out in the middle. Or it never started.

You will most likely be asked if you want to resume watching the movie. Answer that, they say, no, you need to go to bed early or leave the room. Just give me the money back, please. That's all. You can watch another movie in the same way.

Plato Hotel Concierge in Bali

Insurance always works

To increase the efficiency of their guides, Russian-Turkish tour operators came up with such a horror story: supposedly tourist insurance works only on those excursions that the tourist bought from the tour operator. This is complete nonsense.

Sergey, travel agency manager

Fake ticket registration - a way not to lose a tourist

To immediately attach a tourist to a guide, there is a fairy tale about the need to "assure the return flight." Before check-in, guides collect tickets from tourists "for re-confirmation", because returning a ticket is a reinforced concrete basis for a new date, that is, another opportunity to sell excursions or take a citizen for shopping. In fact, there is no need to certify any return flight.

Inga, hotel guide

Avoid beaten paths

If you are looking for where to buy cheaper food or excursions, stay away from well-known routes. You will feel the difference immediately. The simplest example: the price of a glass of beer at a place of mass tourist crowding reaches $ 10, and went a little to the side - and got the same for three.

Sergey, travel agency owner

Guide feeds shopping

The lion's share of earnings for guides comes from the shopping of their customers. Everyone pays the commission: restaurants, shops, jewelry stores. The guide will never recommend any institution just because they really have delicious food or sell souvenirs cheaply.

Prapa, Hotel Reservation Manager

Guides provocateurs

It happens that the guide from the first day offers some dubious services: to adjust the herbs or make a UK passport. It is better to stay away from such assistants: it is possible that this is a planned police provocation in which the guide works as bait. In Southeast Asia, such cases are not uncommon.

Alena, concierge

The main rule of the guide - do not let the tourist leave

If a tourist did not buy excursions on the first day, he will most likely never buy them. Therefore, they come up with all sorts of enticements: if you don’t buy today, then there will be no places, we will write you down for a free trip to the city, we will tell you all the secrets of the hotel. But there are no secrets.

Inga, hotel guide

Medical examinations before employment at the hotel - pure profanity

Hotel workers, especially those who work in the kitchen or in the Food & Beverage department, in theory should regularly undergo a medical examination. In fact, some, even when hired, can bring the results of other people's tests. So a chef or a waiter who is sick with syphilis, unfortunately, is not a myth, but a perfectly acceptable reality.

Stefan, Food & Beverage Director

They steal in the kitchen too!

In the hotel kitchen, anyone who can can steal. The stolen products are written off at the expense of the morning buffet: this lifesaver daily resets many doubtful accounts.

If in some hotel the buffet is especially poor, it means that the most arrogant chefs work here. The security service can make sure that a whole piglet is not taken out of the hotel, but a piece of ham hidden under a shirt will not be noticed.

Once at my place my cooks took out a laptop from my office! The hotel is generally a paradise for those who strive to steal something.

Daniel, the chef

Preventive Tips

During large events - gala dinners or public discos - it’s very difficult to earn a waiter’s location. Everything is in soap, there are many guests. I recommend using the method of preventive tips: choose a waiter and put ten dollars in his pocket with value. After that, personal service will be provided to your table.

Prayut, hotel restaurant supervisor

Making a tourist pay twice for one order is fine

In the holiday season, the income of waiters increases significantly. And not because tourists leave a lot of tips, just some still pay in hotel restaurants in cash, at the same time signing a check.

This is used by waiters: the check goes to the accounting department, and cash to the pocket. Upon eviction, the tourist is presented with signed checks and asked to pay for the food ordered in the restaurants. Indignant screams are not taken into account: if you paid in cash, why did you sign the check?

As a rule, in order not to be late for the plane, tourists pay everything a second time.

Stefan, Food & Beverage Director