Tuesday 27 October 2009

Taking The Full Advantage Of Your Hotel Stay

By Anne Torres

There's no denying the fact that hotel accommodation matters when it comes to ensuring good travel experience. In fact, good accommodation may account for up to half a good holiday experience while bad accommodation can ruin plans altogether. This is why when preparing for a trip, it's wise to devote a considerable portion of your efforts to securing a good place to stay, whether you're traveling alone, with the family, or with colleagues.

When visiting Illinois' capital city, good accommodations are tourist attractions by themselves and a Chicago hotel will surely be right by to make your stay uniquely exceptional. There are common pitfalls, however, that many travelers have run into. In securing an online reservation, for example, relying on confirmation that transpired on the wires may bring you not so pretty surprises when you're actually there. Make sure you have a printout of that confirmation from your email.

This is important because people make mistakes and hotel staff make mistakes. If you're going to show up claiming you have made this and that reservation, you're still not absolutely sure they will believe you. Sometimes, they will if the person who facilitated your online transaction endorsed it properly to other staff. If not, that printout is simply all the proof you can have. Without it, it just might be as if you never had an online reservation, even if you honestly did.

Another mistake you can make is checking in late without proper notification. Lucky if room availability isn't a problem but when guests are overflowing, you just may end up pleading in frustration which, of course, still won't work because hotels will still have a system to follow. The prospect alone is not at all pretty, especially when you have all that luggage in tow. Even with a reservation, always show up early or call in to say you'll be coming in late.

Arrogance toward hotel staff is just another mistake you can make. Believe it or not, it can turn major when you run into problems that you just might need their help for. By all means, be friendly to everyone from the concierges to the chambermaids. You'll never know what they can do and not do for you.

These are people who'll be contributing to the quality of your stay so don't mess up with them. A concierge, for example, can slip you those Valentine dinner tickets even when everyone says they're sold out. These are little things you can do to make your stay nice and smooth and the good thing is, they cost totally nothing.

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