Give me three wishes and I will tell you what I would change about hotel rooms.

Hotel rooms are snug. A commonly cited figure is 325 sq ft but I have seen much smaller in Manhattan (and usually much bigger in Las Vegas).  But assume 325 sq ft, with a lot of the space consumed by the bathroom.  The living space is small.  Let’s declutter it.

Step one: eliminate the minibar and, definitely, eliminate the junk for sale that now sits atop tables and dressers in hotel rooms. I know greedy owners want the profits that come with selling me a 99 cent candy bar for $10 – but I am not buying.

I cannot recall the last time I bought anything from a minibar.  I am thinking it had to be more than 25 years ago, when I had clients that happily picked up all manner of expenses. That stopped in a recession some time ago and so did my buying overpriced minibar stuff.

Of course if the hotelier insists – I have no idea why but if – I am okay with the Virgin Chicago hotel’s no minibar markup plan, where candy bars and Cokes are sold at High Street prices.

Another option: Kimpton’s $10 credit to “Raid the Minibar,” a perk extended to loyalty program members.

Ask hoteliers why minibar prices are so high and they spout mouthfuls of mumbo jumbo – citing fees by outside vendors, theft, other less explicable shrinkage – but I am not buying. The prices are high because they generate high profits. Period.

But that also generates guest outrage and – listen up – annoying guests is no way to build repeat business. Just stop it.

And, oh, by the way, a shop – possibly unstaffed – in the lobby by the front desk works fine for me, if the prices are High Street.

Wish two: remove the infernal hotel phone in the room.  Who answers the thing?  I don’t. Anybody with whom I possibly want to speak knows my cellphone number and I always travel with one, usually two.  The only calls that come in via the room phone are sales calls I do not want to deal with so I do not answer.

Other than at hotels with no cellular service I cannot see any reason to acknowledge the existence of inroom phones. And, oh by the way, for cellphone customers on T-Mobile and Sprint, most newer phones can be toggled to work over WiFi at hotels with no cellular reception. That means the regular number rings, voicemail works, and it’s an adequate substitute for real cellular. But that’s assuming the WiFi is robust, an assumption that is dangerous to make at many hotels.

Either way, just rip out the inroom phone. That works for me.

Wish three:  discard the inroom TVs.  I always travel with an iPad and it is my TV.  I have neither need nor want to play with the hotel’s remote, then attempting to figure out what paltry list of stations are available and, incidentally, I have never – as in never – bought a premium TV service from a hotel so you are not getting that money from me.

It was not bad when TVs were stuffed in armoires – they were easily ignored – but now they hang into the room and, frankly, I just do not want the thing.  Please give mine to the Salvation Army.

Except maybe at that Virgin in Chicago because its televisions let guests stream their Netflix account – which I otherwise would do on my iPad but a bigger screen just might be inviting.

I really have to try that Virgin.

But at other hotels, please, practice decluttering tight rooms.  Your reward will be happier guests.

 

Hack Alert: Retail Point of Sale Terminals Are Under Attack and You Are in the Crosshairs – TheStreet http://bit.ly/1RueVzO My reporting

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has spoken and what it said makes zero sense but for consumers it is bad news indeed. That is because the FTC has declared that it is okay for hotels to slap us with resort fees that are not shown in advertised prices.

This makes no sense, given that the Department of Transportation (DOT) has sternly told airlines that advertised prices have to include all mandatory charges (such as taxes).

Many expected FTC to rule similarly in regard to resort fees, especially since the FTC in 2012 told 22 hotels that resort fees by their very nature are deceptive and misleading.

In its letter to those hotel operators, the FTC said, “One common complaint consumers raised involved mandatory fees hotels charge for amenities such as newspapers, use of onsite exercise or pool facilities, or internet access, sometimes referred to as ‘resort fees.’  These mandatory fees can be as high as $30 per night, a sum that could certainly affect consumer purchasing decisions.”

“Consumers are entitled to know in advance the total cost of their hotel stays,” said Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz back in 2012.

In the years since, at least one consumer advocacy group – Travelers United – has campaigned loudly against “misleading, deceptive resort fees.”

This writer has reported several times on evil resort fees.

What’s changed so that the FTC now winks at resort fees?

Best guesses are that the hotel industry – envious of the ancillary fees (bag check, snacks, premium seats) that have nudged airlines into profitability – launched a full court lobbying press on the FTC and key legislators. Money talks inside the Beltway. Always has.

Nobody is saying resorts cannot charge as they wish. The complaint is rooted in the non-disclosure of resort fees. It’s as though when you check out you get hit with upcharges for electricity and water use (though in California perhaps the latter might make more sense than a resort fee).  Yet that is exactly what a growing number of hotels and resorts are doing.

So do you really have to pay the resort fees?

Back up a step. First: what is a resort fee? It’s an upcharge – which nowadays has crept up as high as $100 per day; generally it’s about 10% of the room rate – that covers, well, stuff you’d expect at a resort such as pool towels, WiFi, a newspaper, and a long list of generally blah activities. The good stuff – real activities – usually have separate fees and that is for spa, guided mountain bike outings with an expert, full length yoga classes, surfing lessons, and, yes, the things consumers go to resorts to enjoy. They all cost extra. What you get for the resort fee is filler.

Trust me: nobody wants to pay for the bad resort WiFi, the superfluous newspaper (when was the last time you opened a USA Today), and a packet of thin activities.

We pay because we are told it is “mandatory,” that we must pay.

You do not have to.  Frugal travelers assured this reporter they often dodge resort fees.  Some tell the desk they do not plan to use anything covered by the resort fee. Others insist to the desk that the resort fees were not adequately disclosed in the booking process and, indeed, many hotels seem to work hard at hiding the fees, or displaying them in tiny type, so that guests do not jump ship before completing the booking process.

Either way: complain loudly and persistently at the front desk.  You just may be rewarded with a waived resort fee.

Another strategy: shop for resorts that do not charge a resort fee. In Las Vegas – a kind of ground zero for resort fees because most hotels charge them, with the fees topping out at $32.48/day according to this roundup – there are in fact some hotels that charge no resort fee.  There are not many and most have no name, but one that doesn’t charge and has a name is the Wyndham Grand Desert.   You know where to take your business.

Incidentally, in the past five years this writer has been to perhaps ten large conventions in Las Vegas, with rooms booked under “conference rates” and, you know what, in every case I can remember the resort fee was waived because the conference organizer demanded it.

Do likewise.

 

 

The world of #creditunion payments is in dramatic flux, via #NAFCU The Federal Credit Union bit.ly/1gs50Ki My reporting

Does It Now Make More Sense For Retirees To Rent – TheStreet bit.ly/1Rm4rlY My reporting

Here Come the Airline Review Sites: Why You Should Care – TheStreet http://bit.ly/1G6IefT My reporting

Can You Trust Google’s Project Fi? – Secure Thoughts http://bit.ly/1JN25bL My reporting – #ProjectFi #Google #WiFi

It – often – rides in public WiFi.  Do you trust your data there?

 

My reporting in TheStreet.

From the Grand Canyon/Northern Arizona to Orlando with a few unexpected places thrown in the mix.

 

Read my column here – and, yep, the news is bad indeed.

Spain is as dangerous as Tunisia, where some 38 tourists recently were killed in a beach massacre.

Chew on that and know this is according to the UK’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office which recently issued a global map of terror hotspots along with pointers to destinations that are more tranquil.

Here’s the map and it is mindblowing.  The FCO said that low threat destinations include Iceland, Bolivia, Ecuador, Poland, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Hungary, Vietnam and Japan. That list is short.  And that because much of the rest of the world is a vastly more dangerous place, per the FCO.

France is no go. So is Australia.

Will I use the map to chart my 2015 travels?

Understand, I spent many nights in Northern Ireland in the height of “The Troubles” – everywhere from Belfast to Derry and even small towns like Omagh. I never felt unsafe. (Perhaps I should have. In 1998, long after the IRA-British ceasefire, a rogue group set off bombs in wee Omagh, killing 29, mainly Spanish school children. It blew up a hotel where I in fact had stayed maybe eight years earlier.)

Even so, here’s my credo: Keep your eyes open, trust nobody, and you very probably will keep yourself safe even in fraught surroundings.

And then there is the terrorist impulse which is to cause consternation by striking in the unexpected place.

That is what makes the world a scarier place and, very probably, rationality alone won’t keep you safe in it. You need luck. And quite possibly the FCO map.

The FCO divides the world into four areas: places where the threat of terrorism is high, where it is general, where it is underlying, and where it is low.

Many, many places win FCO’s highest threat label, including the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, Russia, France, Spain, Turkey, India, just about all of North Africa (Morocco wins a “general threat” label), Australia, Indonesia, Pakistan.

The US and Canada are in the “general threat” bucket.

You are right, the list is so exhaustive the obvious options are to ignore it or to crawl back under one’s covers.

A third way may be to use one’s head.

When I stayed in Belfast, in the bad years, I never stayed at the Europa, a four-star hotel in the city center but it also was one that had won notoriety as “the most bombed hotel in Europe.” It was bombed 28 times during the Troubles.  I usually stayed at tiny guest houses near Queens University, an area that the terrorists on all sides had decreed a DMZ.  Never had a problem, tho I did stay in odd accommodations with tiny beds, often a shared bath, and sometimes feeble heat. But better a little uncomfortable than blown up.

The unsettling suggestion found in the FCO map is that tourist hotspots may become terror hotspots.  Terrorists know the handful of must see spots in Paris, for instance, and so are you at risk at, say, the Eiffel Tower?

The FCO implication is, yep.

In Manhattan I often saw heavily armed NYPD in and around Times Square.  Can’t say I ever saw them in Washington Sq Park, the East Village, or East Harlem.  Presumably they were where their intel told them to be.

So what is a tourist to do in these times of global tension where terror is seen by many as the answer and that means they are willing to sacrifice – indeed want to sacrifice – large numbers of civilians.

I will not tell you what to do, that’s your call.

But I can say that, for me, there are places I deem too high risk, low reward to warrant visiting such as Tunisia to pick on an easy target.

Would I go to Turkey, also on the FCO most dangerous list? Yes, but I have been there and I was dazzled by Ephesus and Istanbul, straddling east and west, is as alluring a city as I can conjure.

I would also go to France, Spain (still want to walk the 500 mile Camino), the United Kingdom, and Northern Ireland, all high risk per FCO.  I very much like them all and that is good enough for me.

Would I go to Russia? No, but my problem is more with the state than its enemies.  There just is not enough to compel me to want to go there.
In other words: go where you want to go. Don’t let terrorists bully you.  Don’t be ignorant, either. Know the risks. But very definitely go exactly where you please. That’s the only way we don’t lose.