Hotels are too quick to boast about room size in public.

Are hotels like men?

He whimsically described himself as having 400 fabulous square feet of room. His boisterous and seductive claims resulted in us spending the night together.  Later, when it was just the two of us alone, I had to wonder.

You said your room was how large?  Whose measuring stick were you using?

Don’t misinterpret the message.  There are no regrets about spending the night with you in your corner room. Your room was more than spectacular.

As the saying goes, “It is not the size of the ship, but the motion of the ocean.”

Your room wowed me with wild waves of excitement.

Don’t be embarrassed to tell people your real size.

Your 300 square feet is truly a wonderful size in and of itself.

The Morning After

 W Hotel San Francisco Room Categories:

Wonderful Room, 300 square feet, Floors 5-12

Spectacular Room, 300 square feet, Floors 14-31

Cool Corner Room, 400 square feet, Floors 5-18

Fabulous Room, 400 square feet, Floors 14-28 

Loyalty Traveler spent a wacky and withering weekend (Fabulous Room 2609) in the uncommon 90 degree heat of downtown San Francisco.

I finally took the time to figure out how to upload photos in FlyerTalk threads. Considering I have used 93% of my allocated space on BoardingArea.com I am glad to have another outlet for sharing photos.

The Loyalty Traveler post yesterday for the Westin Verasa Napa included the most photos I have ever successfully uploaded in a blog post. Typically the program crashes after I upload more than 12 photos into a single blog post and weird things happen with the fonts.

I do not intentionally alter the fonts in my blog posts. When the fonts change size and style within Loyalty Traveler posts, it is almost always due to a technical glitch. Uploading photos compounds the issue.

Anyway, I am finding it so much easier to upload photos into FlyerTalk threads and I can actually do it without compressing the photos as I have to do to save space with BoardingArea.com.

This morning I added photos to hotel master threads for about a dozen hotels. I have about 20,000 hotel photos so many more will appear in the coming months on FlyerTalk and here at Loyalty Traveler.

And someday I will launch my Monterey Traveler and Carmel Traveler websites to focus on the hotels in my hometown area. I have thousands of photos, suggestions, and advice for Monterey Peninsula hotels and travel.

So many hotels, so little disk space and time.

Big Sur, California

I saw the Cirque du Soleil Beatles Love show at the Mirage in Las Vegas last week. Good musical entertainment and visual imagery. I enjoyed hearing new mixes I had not heard before of the familiar Beatles songs.

Kelley and I missed John Lennon that night. I heard the news that day in 1980 standing in a corner market in Montpelier, Vermont.

The news was rather sad, …

John and Yoko Suite, Room 702, Amsterdam Hilton

While the Amsterdam Hilton John & Yoko room suite has specialty room decor and a balcony, the room view is better across the hall in 701, a junior suite on the canal side of the hotel.

Why are lavish desert oasis pools rarely open more than 12 hours a day in a city where the temperature often does not drop below 80 by sunrise?

Casinos don’t profit from pool loungers.

Las Vegas is hot in the summertime. August temperatures at midnight can be 100 degrees. The temperature drops to the 80s by sunrise but by 10 am the temp is usually up in the 90s.

Vegas is a city of great swimming pools. Where else is there such a high concentration of beautiful bodies, bodacious curves, and ripped abs?

Go ogle in Vegas – but be ready to wear your shades in the mid-day sun. This town has limited pool ogle time after dinner on the Strip.

I have stayed at Starwood Hotels Planet Hollywood (formerly The Aladdin Hotel) a dozen times and only managed to make it to the pools once in the few hours they are open for the day. Planet Hollywood has open pool hours for just 10 hours a day in the peak summer season.

Starwood’s Westin Casuarina, one block off the strip, has an open pool for about 18 hours a day.

If the swimming pool is an important consideration in your Las Vegas holiday plans, then call the hotel before you book to check the pool hours for the dates of your stay. You may be wishing you stayed at the Holiday Inn if swimming at midnight is your plan. The Holiday Inn Henderson has 24-hour pool hours, as does the Ritz Carlton Lake Las Vegas, but these hotels are but this hotel is nowhere near the Las Vegas strip and the pool is nothing more exciting than a typical backyard pool.

(The Las Vegas hotel pool websites mentioned in this post are slightly out of date. Ritz Carlton Lake Las Vegas eliminated its 24 hour open pool policy at the beginning of summer 2009. The Ritz Carlton pool hours are now 8am-7pm Sunday-Thursday and 8am-8pm Friday-Saturday.)

The majority of Las Vegas casino hotels on the Strip have pools only open 8 to 12 hours per day in peak summer, and many pools are only open 6 to 8 hours per day between October and May. Pools may even be closed during winter months when temperatures some days still may climb to the upper 70s-low 80s. There are few indoor pools at Las Vegas hotels.

Here are two websites for Las Vegas pool reviews and hours. Nothing is constant in Vegas except the gambling, so a phone call is the best way to check for the latest information on a hotel’s pool hours.

Vegas.com – http://www.vegas.com/resorts/pools/

Las Vegas Advisor: http://www.lasvegasadvisor.com/poolfaqs.cfm

Survey of Las Vegas Hotel Pool Hours in Peak Summer

Bellagio summer 8-8; fall/spring  8-7pm; winter 9-5pm

Caesars 9-5pm

Circus Circus 9-9 summer; fall and winter 9-5

Encore 8-7   (checked 8-15-09)

Excalibur Summer 8-8; Fall and Spring 9-7; Winter 10-5

Fitzgerald’s 7am-11pm

Flamingo 9am-7pm

Four Seasons Sunrise to Sunset

Greek Isles 24 hour pool

Green Valley Henderson 9-8pm 

Hard Rock Café 9am-6pm

JW Marriott 10-6pm

Loews Lake Las Vegas 8-8pm  (checked 8-15-09)

Luxor 8-7pm

M Resort 8-7pm

Mandalay Bay 9-7pm  (checked 8-15-09)

MGM Grand 7am-8pm

Mirage 7-8pm

Monte Carlo 9-5pm

New York New York 9-7pm

Palazzo 8-8pm

Palms 9-7pm

Paris Las Vegas 9-6pm

Planet Hollywood 9-7pm  (checked 8-16-09)

Red Rock Casino 8-8pm  (checked 8-16-09)

Renaissance 8-11pm

Rio 10-6pm

Ritz-Carlton Lake Las Vegas 8am-7pm Sunday-Thursday; 8am-8pm Friday-Saturday  (checked 8-15-09)

Sahara 9-6pm

Stratosphere 8-7pm

Super 8 adjacent to Ellis Island Casino & Brewery one block off Strip ($1.50 microbrew pints all day) - 24 hours (checked 8-16-09)

Treasure Island 9-6pm

Venetian 8-8pm

Westin Casuarina 5am-midnight

Wynn 9-6pm

Westin Casuarina Las Vegas has extended pool hours

 Loyalty Traveler editorial note:

Pool hours were originally  cited from webpage postings of reviews not written during the summer season of peak pool hours. The sources cited were from sometime close in 2008. Posted hours have changed for many of these hotels.

Loyalty Traveler seeks to be a source of accurate and precise information.  Dates shown provide my personal verification of pool hours for the hotel on that date. Changes are frequent in hotel pool hours. A phone call is best for obtaining current pool hour conditions.

Hotel News Now published a story on “10 hotel booking trends” from a presentation at the inaugural Hotel Data Conference by Brian Ferguson, Expedia VP of Lodging Demand and Analysis. Hotel News Now is the newsletter publication of Smith Travel Research, a leader in hotel rate data and research for the hotel industry.

The consumer trend of the past year has been a swing in hotel bookings made through online third-party hotel reservation sites like Expedia, Travelocity, and Orbitz. The viewpoint of Expedia, expressed by Ferguson, is the increased volume in bookings does not directly increase profits for third party online travel agencies due to the lower revenue generated as a portion of lower room rates across all hotel market segments.

What I want to share is the “10 Booking Trends” discussed by Expedia’s Lodging Demand and Analysis VP. I am just a hotel consumer who tries to figure out how to get great value from hotel rates. Reading what the industry experts have to say helps me focus my Loyalty Traveler work on a targeted audience who will benefit from my reporting on hotel rate trends as a frequent guest.

1.       Expedia VP Ferguson: Exchange rates are shifting travel patterns.

Hotel rates in UK have dropped primarily due to the better exchange rate for Americans. Combine the exchange rate with promotions and the UK is a bargain.

Loyalty Traveler: I totally agree, but the window appears to be closing on the exchange rate issue. Winter 2009 offered some of the best deals in years for UK and Europe due to the combination of a much better exchange rate for the US Dollar and hotel loyalty program promotions. The dollar has been losing ground as the stock market goes up. Anyone thinking Wall Street inflation?

2 nights for the price of 1 has been an ongoing deal for the past couple of years to entice travelers to the major chain hotels in Europe and Asia.

2.       Expedia VP Ferguson: Consumers are looking for a deal. Bookings made with promotions are increasing as a share of total hotel reservations.

Loyalty Traveler: I’ll take some credit for this one. I take the time to analyze hotel promotions for readers. Loyalty Traveler rarely books a room without a promotion offer. “Hotel value for the frequent guest” is the Loyalty Traveler motto. 10,000+ unique visitors a month are reading Loyalty Traveler to learn more about hotel loyalty program promotions.

3.       Expedia VP Ferguson: Promotions matter more than ever.

Loyalty Traveler: I get a chuckle out of all the news articles showing how to get better value from your spending in all segments of consumer purchases from groceries to hair cuts to travel.

I had an oil change yesterday for 25% off. The coupon took two minutes to locate on the internet. All the other people at Jiffy Lube paid full price.

Friends have commented I am a cheap ass when I pull out a 2-for-1 dining coupon. I rarely eat out for more than half-price.

I frequently stay in hotels for less than half-price. Promotions matter if you want more money for life’s other necessities and pleasures.

4.       Expedia VP Ferguson: Promotions are getting more creative. It used to be about cutting rates and now hotels add free nights and value-added incentives.

Loyalty Traveler: Promotions are more creative and take more time to analyze for this Loyalty Traveler. I’m looking for the deal whether it is a bargain rate now (free parking, free breakfast) or will result in a bargain hotel rate in the future (free hotel night).

5.       Expedia VP Ferguson: Customers who book online are trading up. Four and five star hotels are getting more affordable.

Loyalty Traveler: I have stayed in some of San Francisco’s finest hotels this year and only once paid over $125. And I received a $500 per night suite for that stay. 2009 is a leisure traveler’s hotel dream.

6.       Expedia VP Ferguson: There are massive swings in online market share.

Loyalty Traveler: No real comment to make here. I haven’t tried the phone call reservation this year. I’ve read articles on Hotel Chatter and Budget Travel about people getting a much better deal through the phone. I’ve been an online customer for 10 years and my experience has rarely been to find a better deal over the phone. I do recall my mother getting good phone rates when my mom and the hotel reservationist could not locate the online promotion I was telling her to book.

7.       Expedia VP Ferguson: Booking compression. People are waiting closer to stay date to book.

Loyalty Traveler: I reported in several posts that my rate analysis of San Francisco hotels revealed the lowest rates typically are found between 7 and 14 days before the stay date. Smart shoppers wait (or at least go with a rate allowing cancellation in case a better rate appears).

8.       Expedia VP Ferguson: Leisure rates went down first and are going down more.

Loyalty Traveler: My hotel rate focus is geared for the leisure traveler. I don’t stay in San Francisco on paid rates when a convention is in town and the hotels go up to $300+ per night. The same hotel room is around $100 per night, a 50% decrease from average leisure rates a year ago, during weeks when business travel is light. And getting an upgrade is much easier when there are not corporate executives buying up the suites.

9.       Expedia VP Ferguson: Increased use of rate fences in packages.

Loyalty Traveler: I am not a marketing person and I need to study this concept since I have been seeing it more frequently lately. Basically it seems the concept is to hide the room rate in a package of bundled services such as airfare, rental car, or hotel amenities like champagne and spa treatments.

I generally find these to be a poor value for a hotel when the components are broken down. Packages are convenient and there are some great deals if you need the car or the airfare. I think this is generally a better strategy for reducing high-cost airfare rather than getting a better value on a hotel room.

10.   Expedia VP Ferguson: Opaque channels are growing faster than non-opaque channels.

Loyalty Traveler: Opaque channels are hotel reservation sites like Priceline and Hotwire where you get a really low rate for an unspecified hotel. Opaque channels are the way to go when hotels are priced at high nightly rates. I opt for Priceline when the alternative is a $200+ night room.

My basic loyalty traveler argument is over the course of the year when traveling and staying 20 to 50 nights in hotels, the hotel loyalty program strategy can be used as effectively as Priceline to pay for rooms when they are relatively low priced and redeem points for high priced rooms.

I have saved a couple thousand dollars in past years using Priceline for trips when the chain hotels were high priced.

2009 has seen incredible promotions from hotel loyalty programs. My Starwood Hotels stays in May averaged less than $60 per room night at upscale hotels, frequently in suites, while allowing me to book $500 per night rooms with the free nights I earned.

Try doing that with Priceline.

St. Regis San Francisco "Priceline may be cheap, but this room was free"

Marriott Rewards is big on targeted promotions for their recurring MegaBonus. The current promotion offer runs September 15 thru January 15, 2010 and hotel stays must be paid with VISA credit card.

Registration is required by October 31. Marriott rewards members need to log into account or call to register for promotion.

Here are some of the MegaBonus variations received by different Marriott Rewards members:

1.       Double points and double night elite credit.

2.       Earn 50,000 points (35,000 for 20 nights; additional 15,000 points after 25 nights).

3.       25,000 points at 2,500 points per stay, beginning with second stay.

4.       25,000 points at 5,000 points every other stay.

5.       40,000 points (25,000 after 15 nights and additional 15,000 after 20 nights).

The promotion requirement for VISA card payment is a major obstacle to many travelers who must use a different brand credit card for corporate travel.

FlyerTalk evangelist Craz posted a method on FlyerTalk for getting around VISA credit card requirement for Marriott Rewards members who prefer to use a different brand credit card.

Link to Delta/Northwest Marriott Rewards Vacation Card 10% promotional discount

Marriott Rewards Vacation Card is a VISA gift card that can be purchased with a $1,000 face value for just $900 + 5.75 shipping fee (10% savings through Delta/Northwest promotional link + earn 1,000 airline miles).

You pay $905.75 for a $1,000 Marriott Rewards Vacation Card that can be used for VISA payment of hotel stays and make your stays eligible for the Marriott Rewards MegaBonus.

According to Craz, the Vacation Card works for Marriott Rewards MegaBonus credit. I did not see anything on the Marriott Rewards Vacation Card webpages stating it is a VISA card, but I assume Craz is familiar with the cards and is more familiar with the Marriott Rewards MegaBonus promotion.

Readers should research this Vacation Card option in more detail if interested.

FlyerTalk thread on current Marriott Rewards MegaBonus.

Delta/Northwest Promotion for Marriott Rewards Vacation Card

Popularity of Chain-Affiliated Hotels Waning?

A national travel survey 2009 National Travel Monitor by Ypartnership/Yankelovich states travelers have increased preference for independent hotels by 6% over the past year. The chain-affiliated hotels do not need to fret too much as 4 out of 5 leisure travelers still prefer brand name hotels, but the survey indicates a growing preference for the individual character and pricing of independent hotels.

Leisure travelers also state a growing preference for limited-service hotels, i.e. hotels without restaurants, over full-service hotels since the 2008 survey conducted by this group. Room rates play a large role in the growing popularity of the limited-service hotel. Also, the perception of better value is a leisure traveler concern.

Still the leisure traveler preference for full-service hotels has only dropped from 66% in 2008 to 60% in 2009 while limited-service hotels have grown in popularity from 34% in 2008 to 40% in 2009.

As Loyalty Traveler I find the interesting data point in this survey to be a preference for chain-affiliated hotels at 80%, yet brand name is cited as a “very influential” factor in choosing a hotel for just 44% of respondents.

Does this mean travelers want a chain-affiliated hotel for consistency in lodging, but do not care which brand?

This indicates to me that leisure travelers are not taking advantage of the full array of benefits from hotel loyalty programs. Readers of my blog know there is real value in working a loyalty program for complimentary upgrades and free nights. I meet so many people who spend 20 to 30 nights in chain-affiliated hotels every year, but rather than being loyal to one major hotel chain and gaining elite status, the desire to get the lowest rate splits their loyalty among the chains.

The result of scattered hotel loyalty is small amounts of points in a variety of hotel programs and no elite status. The trade-off of several  hundred dollars saved over the course of the year is often at the expense of a couple of thousand dollars in potential benefits missed due to no hotel loyalty elite status.

A $200 savings for a 5-night vacation at a Marriott resort may be a savings for one trip, but it is not the best value if the traveler could have had a $200 per night complimentary upgrade at the Hilton resort across town based on Hilton Diamond elite status.

Many leisure travelers have enough hotel activity during the year to reach a high elite status, particularly with Starwood Preferred Guest or Hyatt Gold Passport (hey, Hyatt is giving away top elite status for free right now with complimentary upgrade certificates).

Year after year, I watch fellow travelers going after the best rates without consideration of the potential added value they would receive if they just focused on a single major hotel chain. And they spend thousands of dollars on hotels over the course of the year and could easily put out a few hundred dollars more to maintain high elite status.

I’ve had friends come and see my hotel room and they wonder why I didn’t tell them about the great hotel deal. “I would have stayed here for that price!”

Complimentary room upgrades don’t come with two or three hotel stays a year with a major hotel chain. Demonstrating loyalty means a commitment to spend thousands of dollars over the course of 15 to 30 hotel stays during the calendar year. In my case I feel the loyalty is returned by the benefits I receive from the hotel loyalty program.

Complimentary upgrades are based on showing hotel loyalty to the affiliated hotel chain. It is a win-win relationship. The hotel chain has my loyalty and I frequently receive value-added benefits for my hotel spending.

Room rate, location, and value are cited as the most important factors by leisure travelers when booking a hotel room.

Room rate is quite important for most travelers. The basic practice of setting room rates based on the hotel’s market segment competition means most major brand upper upscale hotels in the same area will have a similar price. The room rate variations are typically due to events and functions that will push rates higher for one hotel over another. With no special events creating higher hotel demand, then room rates are typically within a 10% range above or below an average of the hotels in a particular market segment in a specific location.

When location is most important and room rates among chains within a specific location tend to balance out, then value is left as the primary variable. Hotel frequent guest programs provide the added value in complimentary breakfasts, room upgrades, and future hotel room rebates in the form of points and free nights.

Frequent guest elite status in a major hotel chain’s loyalty program improves the value variable. Rather than downgrading your hotel market segment, try upgrading your hotel loyalty.

Hilton HHonors Reception Desk, Hilton Singapore