5-Star Hotel Employees Spill The Tea On Hotel Secrets, And Some Get Really Dark

"Worked in five star hotels in Beverly Hills.. boy do I have stories:

Husbands who will say hello to staff with their mistress on their arm on Thursday night and their wife on Friday night.

Famous teen celebrity left a room full of needles and various dr*g paraphernalia behind for housekeeping to clean up.

Middle eastern royalty ships in multiple Ferraris and Lamborghinis to the hotel from their home country to drive for the week; caught drag racing later that night by the cops in the neighborhoods of Beverly Hills.

Largest checkout bill I’ve ever seen was roughly $2 million for guest who rented out an entire floor of suites for three weeks, promptly paid via wire transfer.

Had to procure $100k cash for a guest whose wife wanted to shop on Rodeo Drive the next morning, the local bank doesn’t even have that much. Had to get an armored car from the central LA bank branch to deliver."

"I don't work in one anymore, but used to. This isn't really shenanigans, but: the staff is not nearly so impressed by famous or rich people as some of them seemed to think we should be. It was a fancy hotel. We had rich and famous guests all the time. And it was usually the ones nowhere near the top of the ladder who tried to be the most imperious and expected the most deference. If you have to try to convince us you're high status, you aren't. We'd provide polite, professional service for all our guests and try to be helpful and accommodating, but being a C-list actor or whatever isn't going to get you a table in a full restaurant or an upgrade to the already-occupied fancier suites. And if there's a severe blizzard and the airport is closed, we can't open it for you because you're too special to have to wait to fly out. Even if you're a Very Important Businessman."

"Not a 5-star hotel, but about 2 years ago I was on a work trip in a Midwest city. Mid-range hotel for a major brand, which I picked because I have status with them.

I went to Orangetheory Fitness after I finished with the client. Picked up takeout and went back to the room. After I cleaned up I got into bed to watch a couple episodes of Jane the Virgin. I kept getting a whiff of... something. I thought was my gross sweaty workout clothes.

Went to bed and about 10 minutes in I realized I was... damp. You know how sometimes you wake up sweaty? But not 10 minutes after turning in. I then realized that the previous guest had p*ed in the bed.

Went down to the front desk and they were horrified. And got me in a new room super fast. And we’re so apologetic.

Housekeeping should have caught it but honestly if they were using gloves and the smell wasn’t strong, I can see how they missed it."

"I worked in security for one and housekeeping called us all the time for dr*gs they’d find in a room. The first thing we’d ask for is the room number and we’d look up the name of the guest. If it was a VIP or someone important to us we’d tell them to leave it there and “we’d take care of it.”

If the guest was someone we didn’t know and not important to us we’d go up there and take it out of the room, then threaten to evict them from their stay if they did it again.

The clues/hints we would use: -what’s their status tier? Diamond members almost always got a pass -how did they book the room? If it was a 3rd party like Expedia…no pass -how many times had they stayed at our specific property? 5 or more…pass -how much had they charged up? If they were spending money on property outside of the room rate… pass"

"I wrote travel guides to places in the Middle East (Dubai, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, etc) and have stayed in lots of five star hotels around the world for work.

The whole five-star system is murky from the start.

The manager at a top-class London hotel told me that the hotel grading system in general is “utter nonsense”. The problem, he said, is that the list of criteria to reach each of the star ratings is little more than a tick sheet, albeit with around 500 factors to consider. For example, one criterion for being considered five-star is fresh flowers being present in guest rooms, but there’s a huge difference between a big ornate display of orchids and a bunch of daffodils. The presence of either would technically tick the box and in theory you could fulfill all the required five-star criteria yet be hugely inferior to the hotel next door that offers all the same things but at a much higher quality and standard.

The Forbes Travel Guide gave just six London hotels a five-star rating (including the one my insider works at) but that means that fantastic hotels like The Ritz, The Langham, The Berkeley, and Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park are “only” four star. Are they really 20 percent inferior to the five-star-rated Al Bustan Rotana in Garhoud in Dubai which is basically a business hotel near the airport?

It’s also difficult to maintain a consistent roll-call of criteria, as modern demands change. For example, Wi-Fi in the room is a relatively recent expectation and what we expect as standard has changed over the years, so what constitutes luxury now has altered accordingly. When Savoy Hotel in London opened 1889 it was boasting about features such as electric lifts, “speaking tubes” to link each floor, and fully plumbed bathrooms.

Now though, in the era of Internet, crowd sourcing is often the most reliable way to judge somewhere. When hundreds of people on sites like TripAdvisor say a place is overpriced and terrible then it doesn’t matter what the official book says. And if a one-star hotel gets nothing but praise from 90 percent of the people commenting? There’s your consensus of rating right there."

"The baby changing station in the mens room is just the drugs table for all the servers. Physical lines in it from use over the years."

"We don’t bat an eye at pr*stitution or whatever goes on in the rooms as long as it doesn’t affect other guests. Half the women that come to the bar are working girls looking for a sale. The only thing that the hotel industry ever really reports is human trafficking. There are tell tale signs and if something doesn’t add up we do report it to local authorities.

I don’t know about all 5* hotels but I’m sure this happens at most of them. Front desk/reservation staff will basically stalk you online if you’re a notable VIP and your picture will be shared internally to ensure everyone recognizes you so you feel special when you arrive and everyone already knows who you are."

"All my experience is at mid level Marriotts and stuff. We knew when QA season was, and as the 7-3 front desk guy I would look for the inspector. Same day reservation? Platinum? Never stayed here before? Unreasonable number of points?

We had all these stupid things we were supposed to do every day that we NEVER did unless we knew the inspector was coming. We all had to have pieces of paper in our pocket with today's "big idea" because apparently if the inspector wanted to ask any employee down to the housekeepers, they had to be able to know "today's celebration is family" or some BS. We would identify the inspector beforehand every year lol and in the morning they'd check out and reveal themselves and I'd always have to go, "What!?! Wow, great, let me get my GM" like she wasn't right behind the door watching the camera.

Glad to know at every hotel level were all just halfa**ing and looking for the inspectors."

"I've been working in a 5 star Hotel for about 3 ½ years. There's plenty of stuff going on that we pretend to do on the outside and in front of guests but we actually don't.

"First in first out" - you know, how you're supposed to take out the things that expire first and not the newer drinks/foods to make sure you're not wasting food? I don't think anyone did that. I am pretty sure the kitchen staff even put meat on the buffet that was past it's "best by" date.

Overbooking - during big events or fairs or festivals, the hotel will sell more rooms than they actually have just to make more money. It works in a way that Bc of that time period of an event, you pay in advance and you can't cancel your booking. Meaning, if you don't show up, you still pay. The hotel expects people to not show up so they try to book as many people as possible and a few more.

Secret signals - I used to work at the front desk the most time. It's more or less the first impression and the one place everyone goes. Guests, scammers, robbers, you know. If we were threatened or received a call of someone threatening us or the hotel, for example, saying they placed a bomb inside the hotel, we had to subtly let our coworkers know. The signal for "help" at the front desk was dropping a stapler. For F&B, when harassed by a guest and in need of help, the go to was dropping something, like a glass, and making noise like loudly apologising. Draw attention from other guests and employees so the guests will stop. It was considered rude and unprofessional to just tell a guest to stop harassing you."

"I have worked at two. Hotels that are rated by Forbes (formerly Mobil) and randomly “inspected” frequently, and there is a very specific checklist of things the hotel/restaurants must do/offer in order to keep their rating. We always had to be suspicious of any single diners because they could possibly be inspectors. So you could be a regular Joe Schmoe but if you are dining alone you are going to get the 5 star treatment. Once we had a particular woman staying at the hotel and somehow management figured out and confirmed she was an inspector. They literally took security cam stills and printed them out to give to all employees so we would know who she was. I still remember her name was Katrina.

Something else interesting - one of the (5 star) restaurants I worked at (in a 5 star hotel) would frequently be closed for private events. There was usually a contract written beforehand stating the group must spend a minimum amount of money. We got automatic gratuity on whatever that minimum was but the goal was to go over so we would make more money. The people at the events usually didn’t know these details (they weren’t the ones paying) and towards the end of the night if they hadn’t reached the minimum we would have to start pouring the most expensive wine and liquors to meet the goal. Who wants a few rounds of McAllen 25 doubles etc. And people still tipped cash on the open bars so it was easy to walk away with $500 a night in tips after those parties. It was the easiest money I ever made."

hilariosu wrote:
"Fungus."

EaterOfFood replied:
"There’s fungus among us?"

"Watching for signs of s*x trafficking, lots of cheating spouses there under fake names, jacuzzi and swimming pool d*aths (usually from alcohol), guests expose themselves to female staff frequently especially housekeepers and room service, people will legit give you keys to their rooms, sometimes dealing with really terrible organizations for their banquets income, etc. One cool thing is that you can buy pillows, mattresses, etc from many hotel brands if you really enjoyed your sleep at a hotel."

"At a certain Beverly Hills hotel, where I valet’d for a short amount of time, many stars cars are just left there. They come and get them whenever. There was also a code name for Justin Bieber who visited often (I can’t remember it). He picked it himself. His G-Wagon and a Bentley were just kept down there free of charge. Usher also left his bike there a few years back and has just never collected it."

"I dont work there but I know someone who does.

Constantly delaying paying the allowance of interns. Not every staff you see is a full time, experienced person, a good number of them are interns who haven't even graduated and are made to take on several roles from being a janitor, housekeeper, receptionist and sometimes, assistant chef if they are short handed. They work until 12am with little breaks in the name of "experience" and the least that the management can do is pay them on time, but no, the allowance which is say barely 200$ a month keeps getting delayed and some of them completed their internship without seeing a single cent.

"Why not just quit?" Because if they do, they won't be able to graduate and it is arranged by their university/college and they can't just quit or switch to another hotel."

"When I first started working at the B&B, I couldn't handle all the cheating. It's because our location is quiet and secluded the bulk of our customers were affairs.

The most extreme case was one man sleeping with three different women in the same day. Arrived in the morning with one, sent her home, then arrived at noon with a different lady, sent her home and then spent the night with another different woman. This guy was no chad. Small build, glasses, quiet and mild mannered. If I passed by him in the street I would never have thought he has such a colourful s*x life.

The icing on the cake was when one guest asked me out during check out after one of his multiple affairs. Though I politely declined in my mind I was like "Is he serious? I know all of his secrets!"

One time a car filled with women came to bang on a room door. It was the wife of a cheater and she brought her girlfriends. The wife was crying and banging on the door but her husband just ignored her and stayed in the room with his mistress. The night guy on shift was so scared things would get violent. She finally left after hours of loud wailing and banging. Fortunately there were no other guests that night otherwise it would've been quite the scene.

Working there has made me so jaded with relationships. Thankfully the family gatherings, reunions and weddings restored my faith in humanity. Those events are always so wholesome."

"I worked at a 5 star hotel in England as a bartender. Hosted events and stuff. One thing that was common was my manager would just spam extra drinks onto the bill at events to make more money. Or for example if a big wedding ordered 50 bottles of champagne, they’d only give them 30 and would keep 20 back and if they ran out, they’d have to buy more. I reported this to Senior management and they just laughed saying it’s normal. I actually got told off for not taking part in this."

frankentriple commented:
"I stayed at a Marriott one night and it was the best sleep I ever had. The mattress was fantastic. Went home and called Marriott to ask what kind of mattress it was and got “ one moment let me transfer you to our mattress sales department.” One surprised frankentriple, 1300 dollars and two weeks later Marriott delivered a king size to my door. I’m sure my ex is still sleeping in complete comfort 15 years later."

Killer-Barbie replied:
"I did the same thing with a Best Western. I had that bed for 12 years before a fire (it didn't eat the bed, but it was so full of smoke it was unusable). I am seriously debating doing it again."

"We don't care about your backstory. Check in, be polite and don't be a jerk. We want you to have a good time and a good stay but we don't need to hear about everything that's going on in your life. We don't care.

There are celebrity guests and rich people. Please don't bother them. They are only going to return if you don't bother them. They are here for a reason. The reason in most cases is to be left alone.

If you book direct and not through a third party (every online site) I can do a lot for you as far as rates and comps. If you book third party I really can't do things for you other than give you a room. I can give you the same rate as a third party if you book direct and there's a lot more perks.

Most higher end clients book direct. We have them on file, we know them, we have their credit cards on file and we go out of the way for them. If you book third party we flag you.

We try and keep the restaurants and housekeeping up to above board standards but sometimes we short cut because your being a d*ck at the front desk and rushing us through everything."

"The bed and bedding you're paying to sleep in, has 100% been sh*tted in."

"I worked in a Major Vegas Hotel as the Senior Hotel Manager. I’ve seen it all. A few things you wouldn’t know:

Every hotel has bed bugs at some point. It’s not the hotels fault, we noticed international travelers tend to bring them. Probably because they’re staying at multiple hotels per trip. You can even get them from the airplane. To check for bedbugs just inspect each layer of the sheets, under the pillows and mattress. They look like tiny roaches. If you see blood spots on the sheets the next morning that’s usually a sign you have been bitten, but the bites can sometimes take a few days to show or get noticed.

Checking in late at night sometimes means free upgrades or discounted upgrade rates. We would try to sell every last suite at night for almost 80% off. We just wanted something, so they don’t go unoccupied. Sometime if we were over sold on rooms, the late late arrivals (midnight) would get a free suite upgrade because we had no choice. Of course this could also backfire if the hotel is sold out. You may get downgraded for being a late late arrival.

When you complain, the nicest, more understanding guest gets the better compensation, the rude guest gets bare minimum. Always treat the staff with respect and be friendly, you’d be surprised the number of people who are rude. Even for the smallest of issues."