Author Archive
Five “must have” hotel benefits with your extended stay
by coach on Aug.12, 2010, under Business Travel, Hotels
Don’t be afraid to ask for the services that you’d normally have to earn or pay for at the hotel. Below are the things that you should ask for and would most likely get:
1. Ask for an upgraded room or simply a better room (like closer to the elevator or away from the ice machine, etc.). There’s no reason why your request wouldn’t be met.
2. Ask for a discounted or client rate by letting the staff know that you’ll be there for an extended period of time for a client. This works especially well if you are in a group (i.e., traveling with team members)!
3. Ask the hotel staff to book your future reservations so you don’t have to call or reserve online every week (don’t worry, you have up to the previous day of arrival or 6pm on the date of arrival to cancel for each reservation).
4. If the hotel charges for Internet, ask for the service to be complementary or get the hotel manager to get your hotel status to a level where it is free (see previous post). You may not get platinum status day one but it will help in the long run.
5. If you do not have hotel status, ask the manager to make it happen. We have gotten entry level silver and gold status at Hilton and SPG (Four Points, Sheraton, etc.) when we were rookies. Hotels still honor loyalty unlike airlines.
How to guarantee a mid-size or full-size rental car at Hertz
by coach on May.04, 2010, under Rental Cars
As a a Hertz Five Star Gold customer, I have been reserving mid-size cars at Hertz for the past four months and they’ve been giving me Toyota Corolla’s, Dodge Stratus, and cars that I would considered compact or economy class. I’ve tried to add NeverLost, Hertz’s GPS device, to my mid-size reservation in hopes to get a real mid-size car and still end up with a Corolla.
Recently I found a new best practice to add to Captain G’s list of best practices for renting cars. If you want a mid-size car or get upgraded to a full size at no extra costs, make your Hertz rental car reservation as a mid-size reservations and add satellite radio (Sirius XM) as an option. Satellite radio cost you about $5 per day depending on the city you’re renting from but it almost guarantees you a mid-size if not full size car. The rationale behind this logic is Hertz will not put satellite radio in their Corolla and other compact size fleet. Regular renters will not rent a compact car and upgrade to a satellite radio. So if you’ve $5 to spare per day and want to ensure you have a midsize to full size car, make sure you’ve Sirius XM radio as an option on your rental reservation. And if you’re lucky (this happens to me about 75% of the time), you’ll also end up with a Neverlost too, at no cost!
Stay at a Westin twice and get a $100 Amazon gift card
by coach on Mar.09, 2010, under Hotels
Starwood (SPG) just issued a promotion to get a $100 gift card from Amazon. All you need to do is stay twice at a Westin property in the US or Canada between now and May 13, 2010. You will have to checkin from Sunday to Thursday as weekend stays do not count. This shouldn’t be an issue for our readers as we’re mostly business travelers. Here’s the link to register. By the way, you’ll need to register by April 30, 2010. There is also a limit of three Amazon cards per SPG account.
