Travel

 

By Robert McGarvey

 

The Kim Kardashian caper in France – where the reality star claims to have had $9 million in jewelry robbed while staying at the the Hôtel de Pourtalès aka the No Address Hotel – is the wake up call that prompts the question: how safe are we in hotels?

The Erin Andrews case raised similar questions, perhaps more poignantly.

Crime happens at hotels.  

We collectively spend a lot of time worrying about terrorism and, without minimizing those worries, a reality is that ordinary, brutish, thuggish crime remains a part of life on the road.

The Kardashian heist is in fact small time. Years ago, on January 2 1972, perhaps the biggest hotel robbery of all time happened at the swank Pierre in Manhattan –  some $28 million in cash and jewels were lifted by a gang of eight.  Said to be the work of organized crime.

Hotel burglaries in the south of France – especially Cannes — are almost commonplace.

But every day there is unglamorous hotel crime.

Here’s a particularly bloody shoot out at a Motel 6 in Phoenix a few months ago.  

In Waco, police have launched an initiative to cut hotel crime rates which presumably had reached a level where it was bad for business.

Vehicle break-ins might qualify as commonplace crime at hotels.  (Word of advice: leave absolutely nothing of any value in a car parked in a hotel lot.  It’s a hassle to schlep those extra bags into the room, but do it.)

Frequently the perpetrator is a stranger, sometimes a family member or friend.  

Lots of electronics are said to be stolen from hotel rooms.

Here’s the question: how vulnerable are we? How risky are hotel stays – really?

Josh Williams, director of risk management for Crescent Hotels told Hotel Management, “We can only control so much of what goes on at [a given] hotel, and if this can happen to a Kardashian it raises some questions. If you are in my position, you get skeptical and cynical because you have to ask the questions.”

He added: “Bank-style silent alarms, working in groups and having more physical security present at all times, especially when dealing with celebrities or luxury guests, these things could have prevented this.”

Understand, the Kardashian business may have captured lots of headlines but it is unclear that it actually means much to you or me.  For one thing, she was staying in what amounts to private apartments. For another, the very way she conducts her life is antithetical to good security.

Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld has made good points about the Kardashian robbery – assuming in fact it occurred. The victim, per Lagerfeld, has to share some of the blame: “(She is) too public, too public – we have to see in what time we live. You cannot display your wealth then be surprised that some people want to share it.

“I don’t understand why (Kardashian) was in a hotel with no security and things like this. If you are that famous and you put all your jewellery on the net, you go to hotels where nobody can come near to the room.”

Lagerfeld has a point.  Would you put pix of yourself – and your expensive baubles – on social media?

If so, good luck.  

My personal rule of travel is to bring nothing that has real value.  That even extends to technology (I usually travel with an aged Chromebook that can’t be worth over $100 and an elderly Nexus tablet).  I recommend a similar philosophy. Bring nothing you’d cry about if it went missing.

I also never use the in-room safe because there is rich documentation online that many are very, very easy to break into.  

In-room, good practice is to always use all the available door locks.  Sure, a determined criminal could always force the door – but most would not have the motivation to do so if they encounter enough locks.

Can you trust hotel security to keep you safe? When I’ve visited high profile executives and celebrities in hotels, they have always brought their own security.  What’s that say?

Yes, I do trust hotel security – in well run properties – to maintain a baseline level of safety in the property. But, outside of some special properties in Manhattan, Las Vegas, and Washington DC, hotel security often lack deep training and preparedness.  They do their job – absolutely – but their training has not equipped them to operate at the level of big city law enforcement.  

Nor should guests expect that much.

Ultimately your safety in a hotel comes down to you. What you do and don’t do.  

Who do you tell you are staying where?

What valuables do you bring?

Do you pick hotels in safe, secure neighborhoods and where fundamental security seems to be practiced in the public areas?

Ultimately, your safety in a hotel is not much different from your safety on Fifth Avenue.  You are in charge.  Manage accordingly.

 

By Robert McGarvey

 

Many hospitality purveyors want to stifle your right to free speech – especially when you are talking on TripAdvisor and Yelp.

That’s why now it is more important than ever that we assert our right to express opinions about the hotels where we stay, the restaurants where we eat and, if we like, the many travel related vendors we encounter on every trip, from airport shops to limo services.

Those reviews when good help the vendors. When bad,they hurt – and some vendors are hurting back, such as Prestigious Pets in Dallas which sued because a customer for its pet sitting services dissed their service afterwards.  

That company claimed the one-star review caused “irreparable and continued… libelous and slanderous harm” and it sued.

In California, meantime, Hassell Law Group is suing Yelp because a client put up a negative review that the law firm deemed defamatory. Hassell won in Superior Court, it won on appeal, and the matter is now before the California Supreme Court where a galaxy of tech businesses – from Facebook to Microsoft – signed a letter that said the lower court ruling “radically departs from a large, unanimous and settled body of federal and state court precedent” which could “silence a vast quantity of protected and important speech.”

A long accepted principle of the Internet is that the host – Yelp in this case – is not responsible for the content of user posts.  That principle has allowed user generated content sites to flourish and that begat TripAdvisor, Yelp, etc.

Out of them arose much more honest and unbiased reviews – by real people – of hotels and restaurants in particular.

I have long said that where there is a critical mass of reviews – perhaps 50 minimum, maybe 100 – there almost certainly is truth to be found in the totality and that truth, generally, is a lot more honest than what has historically appeared in many publications under the bylines of paid writers.

I am not saying the writers are bribed. Nope.  I am saying I will generally trust 100 citizens who have paid for a room or a meal out of their own pockets more than I will trust a reviewer who may well have been comped.  

Pete Wells at the New York Times is a glorious exception. I trust him, a lot, and would spend my own money on his say so.

But he is an outlier.

In most cases, give me the masses and I’ll let their opinions lead me.

Do I believe all the reviews are true? Nope. Some are written by cranks. Some by would-be extortionists. Some by devious competitors.  Academics who have investigated agree that a significant percentage of Yelp reviews probably are fake.

Similar is probably true at TripAdvisor.

That’s why I have long recommended that readers throw out the really positive reviews, along with the really negative.  Focus in on the middle ground and very probably a kind of truth will emerge in my experience.

And I believe that truth has emerged as a valuable tool in the traveler’s toolset. For us, it can save us money and also – perhaps more importantly – grief and bad times.

Some businesses disagree and the wily ones are inserting a non disparagement clause in their contracts (and who reads a contract with a pet sitter anyway?) – but now Congressional legislation is taking a hard look at those gambits. A bill – co-sponsored by Joe Kennedy in the House – would ban contracts that prohibit negative reviews. That legislation has passed in the House.

Similar legislation last year passed in the Senate.

The bills have to be reconciled, then win approval again in both houses, then go to the President.

“A lot of Americans, particularly in my generation, use those reviews,” millennial Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass told AP. “You look at good reviews and you look at bad reviews and both of those are very important.”

It’s not just the young who swear by reviews. I know plenty of seniors who won’t stay at a hotel before reading TripAdvisor.

Smart.

That’s why it’s my recommendation that you contact your representatives and Senators and urge they help enact this important consumer protection legislation.

While you’re at it, remind the politicians that free speech has been integral to the rise of the Web.

Suing because of a review perceived to be bad – hurtful – just is overkill.

The antidote to a bad review is easy. Get a lot of good ones. Earn them.  If I read 20 reviews that say a hotel is a great bargain and the rooms are spotless – then one that says the place is a dump, which do you think I believe?

Right.

Give consumers some credit for a little intelligence — then deliver great service and you will be rewarded.  It’s that easy.

 

 

 

 

By Robert McGarvey

By now you have seen the Inside Edition episode – or at least heard about it – where  Candlewood Inn and Suites in Manhattan, La Quinta Inn and Suites near Central Park, and a Residence Inn all failed to change sheets between guest visits.

How did the show know? Simple.  It sprayed “I Slept Here” on the sheets – invisible to the naked eye, visible under ultra violet light.

All three hotels were profusely apologetic – but so what? Not changing sheets between guests is plain disgusting and if it is happening to sheets, it is happening to towels, glasses and who knows what else. And reportedly many hotels do not change comforters or duvets between guests, although some do.  

Note: Inside Edition batted .333. It checked into 9 hotels, 3 failed the sheet test. That is a terrifying stat.

Understand too: Inside Edition checked out of the room. Then later checked back in, under a different name, requesting that room. The sheets should have been changed, of course. They weren’t.

That is indeed gross.

But I urge you: do not blame the housekeepers.

I am quite sure housekeeping is negligent, really at most hotels below 5 diamond status.  But that failing is not on the housekeepers, anymore than the bartender is responsible for the swill the hotel bar pours as its house brands of booze and the slop that features in many hotel breakfast buffets is the fault of the property’s executive chef.

What is at work is a kind of ruthless cost cutting that, at many hotels, went into overdrive in the early days of the Great Recession, that is, 2008-2009 and the mindset still predominates at many properties.  I have talked with senior hotel execs – rungs above GMs – who have gloated about their cost cutting “successes.”

And now the guests are suffering the consequences.

Housekeeping has often been a high priority target of senior hotel managers. I have no idea why, just that it is. Maybe it’s because so few guests ever have direct interactions with housekeepers – who work silently, behind the scenes, with a kind of invisibility.

As management turned the screws, at many properties housekeepers have found the number of rooms they were assigned to clean per day jumping from 12 to 14  upwards to 15+, often approaching 20.

The math becomes impossible when it takes an estimated 30 minutes on average to clean a typical hotel room. Add minutes if the guest has checked out for tasks like sheet changing. Also add minutes if the guest is a slob and many are.

Here’s what union Unite Here said about housekeepers and their ramped up room quotas: “To meet this quota, she often skips breaks and works off the clock. It also is increasingly common for her to have luxury beds with heavier mattresses and linens, triple-sheeting, duvets, and extra pillows than in years past. Other add-ons, like coffee pots, spa robes and floor-to-ceiling mirrors, can make a housekeeper’s job of cleaning a room even more difficult and time-consuming.”

Unite Here added:  “With booming business and high room rates, housekeepers face increasing time pressure to maintain a quality guest experience. Many housekeepers report that their hotels are understaffed and that they must work at unsafe speeds, which increases their risk of injury.”

Unite Here also noted that most housekeepers are women, they have the highest injury rate among hotel employees, and here is why: “Each day, she may lift 100-pound mattresses, push heavy supply carts across miles of carpeted floors, climb to clean high surfaces, or drop to her hands and knees to scrub floors.”

For how much money? In most of the country, housekeepers earn near minimum wage especially when they are not unionized.

And often they are forced to deal with disgusting junk left behind by guests, including discarded syringes (increasingly common, apparently).  How would you like to pick needles off the floor? Especially when you are in an enormous time crunch?

What can we – guests – do?

If a room is not cleaned, complain – loudly – to the GM.  

Stress that the fault is not on the housekeeping staff but on the hotel management. Give people too much to do and some of it won’t get done.  

Email the hotel corporate manager – complain loudly, not about housekeeping, but about the corporate mandated cost cutting.

Want to know how you can insure that you get a clean room on check-in? Here are great tips from longtime GM Mike Matthews. Ask for a room that has recently been deep cleaned is his advice.  But read his column.  He also offers poignant insights into the plight of the hotel housekeeper and things are only worse nowadays.

So do this too: Leave the housekeeper a decent tip – at least $2/day, as much as $5 in a ritzy hotel or if you are messy (you know who you are). If the housekeeper does something special for you, tip accordingly.  

Say hello if you see a housekeeper in the hall. Show a little humanity.  
And whatever you do, if your sheets aren’t changed, don’t come down on the housekeeper. It really is not her fault.

By Robert McGarvey

 

 

What part of hotel WiFi is dangerous to your data don’t you understand?

I ask because, according to a new report from the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), 64 to 69% of you say you would book a room directly with a hotel for free WiFi.

That stuns me.

I get why 35% of business travelers in that survey say they want more outlets in rooms – I certainly do and I find it mind boggling that it is 20 years now that I have had to rearrange hotel room furniture on check in just to find enough outlets. At least nowadays I don’t carry a powerbar with me, something I routinely packed in the 1990s. Hotels have made progress but not nearly enough

But color me also curious why 32% of business travelers want inroom chargers for phones and laptops – I suppose they have never heard of “juice jacking.”  Read about it and you will never again use those charging kiosks at airports (I never have, never will) and I doubt you will use such tools even in a hotel room.  The risks are too high.

Which brings us back to the siren call of free hotel WiFi.

You’ll recall that in the Odyssey, Odysseus had his crew tie him to the mast so that he could safely ignore the call of the Sirens – who enticed sailors into shipwrecks and drowning.  Odysseus steeled himself to sail right by.

Do likewise my friends, when it comes to hotel WiFi.

If you absorb nothing else from me, remember these two realities:  Never, ever use a credit card at a hotel restaurant, bar or gift shop is number one and that is because a month does not go by when there isn’t another reported hotel data breach and the real question is how many are ongoing but have yet to be discovered by the hoteliers?

It just is dangerous to use plastic at hotels – although, so far, reservation systems appear not to have been compromised.

Hotels have however had epidemic issues with compromise of their loyalty programs and also their restaurants, bars and gift shops.

If you must use the latter, pay with cash, or sign the purchases over to your room. You’ll probably be safe. Just don’t use a credit and definitely not a debit card because – these days – you have to assume there’s a good chance the system has already been breached.

Hotels just don’t put enough – or the right – emphasis on data security.

Which brings us back to the second lesson and that is the pervasive dangers of hotel WiFi. For at last a decade, information security experts have warned that public WiFi in general and hotel WiFi in particular are playgrounds for hackers.  Packet sniffing technologies make it easy – even for the technically unsophisticated – to scoop up posts on public WiFi networks.

Don’t think it doesn’t happen. It definitely does.

The cure? Do as I do and – whenever doing anything remotely sensitive in a hotel room (banking, for instance) – I create a hotspot with my cellphone and use it to power the connection. There’s a reason I am paying for 6GB of data on T-Mobile and the same amount on Project Fi and it’s not because I stream college football games on ESPN.

It’s because I prefer the safety in creating my own hotspot.

Should you never use inroom WiFi? Sure, use it to stream that ESPN game, to watch YouTube Ted Talks, to play blackjack – however you fill down time on the road.  Read newspapers online too. Just avoid sites where you sign in with a username and password – because you don’t want a hacker to grab those credentials and work mischief with them.

Another option: use a VPN when on hotel WiFi.  That will probably cost you a few shekels and it may slow your connections – VPNs usually do – but a VPN encrypts data and that probably will be enough to thwart hackers and data sniffers. This way, you get the free WiFi access but the VPN gives you a measure of protection.

Bottomline: assume hotel WiFi is hacked.  

Is it always? Of course not.  

But it’s porous enough of the time that the security savvy know to avoid it.

Do likewise.

Or at least take steps – such as VPN – to protect yourself.

 

How to Win Travel Rewards With Hotel Loyalty Programs – TheStreet http://bit.ly/2bGmpRW My reporting

Will Medicare Cover You For Illnesses Abroad? – TheStreet http://bit.ly/2bGlYan My reporting

 

By Robert McGarvey

A recent Harris survey – done for the American Institute of CPAs – raises troubling questions about our travel loyalty programs and us. The implication of those findings is that many of us aren’t redeeming the points and miles and they in fact may cost us money (net).

That’s on top of 2015 poll data out of Harris that raise a chewy question: Are we in fact getting real value out of loyalty points and miles?

Note: I am on record that airline miles are approaching null value. And I have been railing about this for some time.   And yet when I flew from Phoenix to Newark in April, for a professor’s retirement party, I did so on United miles – and I luxuriated in the free ride.

I also have a stash of miles in the Amex program, well over a quarter million.

So I am not opposed to rewards, I just am not that interested in accumulating them.

That’s why I am interested in what we see when we drill down into the Harris data. What do we think about airline rewards programs?  43% say they are very/somewhat useful – but 57% say they are a little bit/not useful at all.  In fact 32% say they aren’t useful at all.

27% say hotel rewards aren’t useful at all.  46% say they are very/somewhat useful.

29% say credit card travel rewards are not at all useful. 46% say they are very/somewhat useful.

Eyeball the math and – stunningly – in every case, a majority say that the damn things aren’t useful or only a little bit.

Who expected that?  Even a loyalty Grinch such as myself is surprised by the sagacity of the traveling public in this regard.

But it’s the recent CPA survey that highlights how useless points are to many of us. Said the CPAs: “ In their lifetime, 15 percent of Americans have paid for part or all of their trip with rewards points, compared to 14 percent who say they’ve taken a trip that has resulted in a credit card balance that could not be paid off by their next statement.”

The CPAs took aim at the “travel hacking” advice that lately has proliferated like kudzu in a Carolina summer, where the purported aim is to tell us how to travel for free, on points.  Hah. Said the CPAs: “A total of 12 percent say they have opened a credit card in order to obtain hotel or airline rewards while six percent have selected a more expensive flight or hotel to earn travel rewards points and six percent have taken a trip just to maintain or upgrade a rewards level. Despite those efforts, only seven percent of all Americans used rewards points to pay for any part of their last vacation – with only one in a hundred (one percent) paying for their entire trip using points.”

I’m surprised it’s 1 in 100 that gets a total freebie. On my Newark run I personally paid for three nights in a Hyatt, plus a lot of meals, say $750 total.  That is much more than I saved with the free airline ticket.

The CPAs continued: “in the last year alone, 14 percent of all Americans have suffered the negative financial consequences from their vacation travel, with 12 percent carrying a balance or paying interest on their credit card, three percent missing a payment or being charged a late fee and two percent going over the spending limit on their credit card while on vacation.”

Granted, we are business travelers. We are more sophisticated.

At least we should be.

And yet I continue to hear from many business travelers that I misunderstand the value of airline loyalty programs in particular – even though more experts say similar, that loyalty programs are an oldfashioned Times Square shell game where you cannot win.

Except of course sometimes you do.

I’ve enjoyed a lot of flights paid for with miles – even trips to Europe.

But here’s the thing: I no longer will do a thing to get miles.  If I have ‘em, I’ll spend ‘em, and be grateful for the deals. But I will not alter my behavior to get them.

Ditto for hotel rewards.

(I can’t comment on rental car rewards. I belong to no programs and can only recall one car rental in the past five years.)

As for credit cards, Amex gets most of my spend – but the rewards are just a perk.  I’ve stayed with Amex because it has excelled at service.  

Nobody is saying burn your loyalty cards. The message is this: Collect what rewards come your way in the ordinary course of your travels. Enjoy them when they come. But don’t do anything special to get them.

That’s how to win.

How Your Smartphone Can Keep You Safer – Secure Thoughts http://bit.ly/2bvYuAU My reporting

Is Vacation Deprivation Wrecking Your Career? – TheStreet http://bit.ly/2bnNKVf My reporting

Why You Don’t Want to Use WiFi at an Airbnb Rental | Mirmay Blog http://bit.ly/2bnE4u8 My reporting