50 Hotel Workers Share The Red Flags To Look Out For During Your Next Stay

If anything in the restroom is dirty or seems 'off' to you, it means housekeeping is slacking and/or their morale is low. This is likely the result of negligent management, owners, etc.: The place is rotten to the core, and other rooms aren't likely to be any better.

The hot tubs are disgusting. I used to clean them.

I have held many hotel positions, all in luxury locations. Tip the front desk agent as soon as you walk up. They often keep the best rooms in their back pocket for problem/super awesome guests. Most of the time these room don't cost more (think corner room with more windows). The valet/bellman will run to the store for you to buy cigarettes/booze/anything else. A$k nicely. Ask the valets/doormen about nightlife/restaurants. They are often the ones who actually go out frequently and enjoy the scene. Many concierges will only recommend places that they receive incentives for. And pleasepleaseplease fill out comment cards and use hotel employees names who were good at their job. You have no idea how large of a positive impact this has for the employee.

Don't bother leaving negative reviews on Trip Advisor. It's hard to change an issue and make your stay better after the fact, and especially when you're bitching online and not directly to the hotel. Let the front desk and/or management know about the issues with your stay WHEN THE ISSUES HAPPEN. It's so difficult to help people or solve what is going on when they let you know as they're leaving or when they leave a shitty online review! If the front desk and/or management genuinely refuse to help you and are just generally shitty unhelpful people, then sure. Let it all out on Trip Advisor. I once had a lady who came in telling her daughter she was ugly, proceeded to scream at me because the person on the 1-800 number she called quoted her a lower rate than what showed up on my screen. She told me I was shitty at my job and pathetic for not knowing what was going on with "my company" .. when she called some call centre in god knows where. This bitch was so rude that she made me cry.. I can't say a lot of guests have made me cry. We take a lot of shit at the front desk. I gave the woman like a 20% discount lower than what was quoted to her on the phone and she still called me pathetic, bitched about our continental breakfast, and wrote a Trip Advisor review stating that I (she mentioned my name!) had the worst customer service she's ever experienced and she is outraged by our terrible breakfast and it's a lie that our internet is free. I had even gone to this woman's room to help her type in the password for our FREE wifi, so I don't even know what crevice of her ass this was pulled out of. But yeah. Just.. don't be a raging asshole.

The smell of smoke is a red flag. If you can smell smoke, it's one of those hotels who says they don't allow it, but do.

If something did not meet your expectations (slow internet, cold water, dirty room), complain about it (NICELY). You might get free points for the inconvenience (sometimes as many as the value of one night stay). If you are staying at a hotel of a chain, and the front desk offers only an apology, call the hotel brand (e.g. reservations/customer care). Hotels of the popular chains are typically franchises, and the management company loves to receive feedback, because a sub-par hotel can affect the reputation of the brand.

Currently work Front Desk for a little over 3 years.

--Don't be a d**k. I can make your stay pretty shitty.

--If you watch a movie and say that you didn't, I can see how long you watched it and what you watched so be careful if you're trying to get some free movies, expecially if it's on a work account. I will fax that s**t straight to your boss.

--If you have your Do Not Disturb sign up all day and take it down at 7:30 pm, don't expect to have your room cleaned. Call the desk and we will give you the extra linens, toiletries etc.

--At least speak a little bit of the language of the country you're in. It's really f*****g frustrating to use hand signals and draw pictures while trying to get your information

--If you have a problem with your room, don't wait until the morning to complain and try to get a discount. If you didn't call the desk for help, then obviously it wasn't a big deal and you're just being cheap.

--If you book through a third party site and you don't specify what type of room you want, you will get whatever is leftover. It will most likely be a smoking room or handicapped accessible. Can't blame us, blame the third party site. If you want the proper room at least call the hotel to verify your reservation information.

EDIT**
Wear sandals in the showers. PLEASE. And bring your own pillows and blankets. You'll feel better.

Front desk staff are people too, don't treat us like animals. We also accepts tips.

A little tip from someone who runs a hotel:

It's fine if you find hotels through sites like expedia, priceline or hotels.com but once narrowed down you should try and call the hotel and get a better rate. I pay a commission for every room booked through a travel agency and I pass that cost down to you by raising rates on those sites. I know most of the hotels in my area do this and if they won't offer you a cheaper they'll often times give you an upgrade.

I don't really do this for big holiday weekends like July 4th so YMMV then.

Worked night shift at a lower-end chain hotel for a while. If you're going to check in very, very late/early (2-4am), try to call to let us know a couple hours ahead of time. Many hotels do the night audit around 3am which effectively turns the day over, so checking in around then can be inconvenient and irritating for both of us, and I can pretty much do whatever I want in that case.

For instance, you come in at 2am Saturday morning, but I haven't run the audit yet, so to the computer it's still Friday. Technically, I'm supposed to check you in, charge you the regular daily rate, and you have to be out in 9 hours for check out Saturday morning (again, to the computer you're just checking in very late on Friday).

However, I'm happy to give you a room key, let you get settled, then have you come back in half an hour after I've run audit to officially check you in then, so instead of 9 hours, you pay the same for 33 hours. There's also an early check-in fee that - providing we're not booked solid - I'm happy to "forget" to key in as well.

Do not use the ice bucket without a liner. It may have been used as a puke receptacle.

A lot of those competing hotel websites are actually owned by the same people.

Don't try to screw over a hotel. Don't skip out on paying, or refuse to leave a room. If you have property in a rented room and you do not pay your rent, the hotel is under almost no obligation to let you retrieve your things out of said room. Most hotels have a shit list, and sometimes we share them. If you are a big enough prick there could be dozens if not more hotels that wont rent to you.

Learn how Debit cards work for Christ sake people! It doesn't work the same as a Credit card and will get taken right out of your account so the hotel knows they will get paid. You also get authorized for more money on top in case of incidentals and no they will not take it off, they don't know you and are not going to take that chance. Also if you want to pay with cash expect to put a $100 deposit down for the room. All of this is management rules. Not the desk you are not going to gain anything by yelling at them.

When you book with a website (not the hotel's), you often can't change your reservation with the hotel because your contract is actually with whatever site you used. Cancellations, refunds and the like are out of our hands. It usually doesn't matter, but it's always good to know. Prices can also vary, you won't always get a better deal on the travel site. You essentially now have two people making money off of you instead of one. It really depends on availability and nightly rates, which change all the time.

Immediately check under the bed for trash

Know what services the hotel has before you arrive. I work at a limited service hotel where our 3 major perks are free internet, free breakfast, and free local calls.. it's pretty basic and gets really annoying when guests are outraged by the fact that we don't have a pool or a restaurant or a gym. It takes a two second Google search to figure this out and saves you from looking like an idiot when you're angry about something you should have known in the first place.

As a frequent business traveler and a frequent drinker, I have found out that the bottom of the ironing board can usually be used as a bottle opener.

"When the towels and linens smell mostly like bleach — red flag."

We give free toothbrushes, deodorant, slippers and rubber ducks to anyone who asks. If you go to the front desk late at night when the auditor is working and ask, "can I have some free stuff?" They will probably give you something.

Perhaps a little late to the party, but I'd **strongly** suggest you carefully read where you're making your reservation. Most hotels now have their own website and, more importantly, imitators. You're not (very) likely to get your credit card stolen, but you are likely to be getting overcharged and/or have your reservation bungled. I've had probably hundreds of bizarre requests offered to people which we physically cannot fulfill -- by third-party agencies that would claim to be working for the hotel.

TLDR: Make sure you're checking the website for the hotel, not an advertisement that looks like their hotel.