Stupid Guest Tricks

What do you do when one of those guests have allergies to cigerette smoke? Do you still give them a smoking room?

An update on the lack of tourists in Hawaii.

I went into Lahaina for lunch. The streets were so empty you could have fired a gun down the main drag which a few people did.

I know this sounds crazy, but could you give your upgrade to another family? Let's say my sister and I are checking in at BCV (we will in Sept) and they are out of studios but offer us our choice of a 1 bedroom or 2 bedroom. There is a family of four next to us checking into the last studio. Could we swap rooms with them? We don't really need that big of a room and it may make someone else's vacation that much better :)

Yes and no. It depends. You can usually turn down an upgrade unless you are pretty much the last person to check in and that's the only room available. Upgrades are based on party size, length of stay, special requests made, as well as other factors specific to a particular property. You may have been chosen for an upgrade based on how long you were staying. If that other party is staying two weeks, and you were only staying 3 nights, the hotel probably can't upgrade them as they'll need the room sooner than that for an upcoming reservation. If there are no other guests due to check in that have a length of stay that matches the availability of the upgraded room, you may not be given a choice. Room assigning is rather like a jigsaw puzzle. All those stays have to fit together to keep the rooms as occupied as possible.

That other party may have made a special request, like to be closer to the elevator or on a particular floor, and the upgraded room may not meet their needs while others in the hotel do. The upgrade may have been offered to you because of a special request YOU made too, and to turn down the upgrade may mean taking that smoking room you didn't want, or not having the king bed you asked for.

Your best bet when being offered an upgrade you don't want is to throw it back to the hotel to assign. They'll most likely be surprised (most people throw a tantrum when they aren't upgraded!) but if they have other options, they'll find someone to upgrade who wants the room.