By Robert McGarvey

 

Etihad is about to find out if we are ready to pay to keep the seat next to us empty.  Will you pay?

According to CNN, starting July 3, passengers will be able to bid at the time of booking on keeping up to three neighboring seats vacant.

The carrier also has opened up its business class lounges to economy passengers, granting access for up to $250 in its hub in Abu Dhabi and $75 in Europe and the US.

As for the club, you know my opinion. Some genuinely suck, but when there’s a Centurion Lounge nearby I am all in

I also have praise for the lounges I have been in in Europe – so maybe I’d splurge on the Etihad access offer.

But it’s the empty seats that got my attention. Partly it’s an appealing idea.  Indeed.

I am old enough that I remember pretty much never having a passenger next to me when I was stuck in economy. Never as in it just did not happen.

So color me interested in the Etihad deal – and know that if it catches on – other carriers, always on the hunt for new revenue streams, will pile on.

There is a kind of genius to Etihad’s plan. Take a non performing asset – a seat that will be unsold – and monetize it anyway.  It’s the kind of gambit that airline beancounters will applaud, if enough of us take the plunge.

Three issues occur to me.

Will other passengers honor the empty seats – or will they snag them and then what happens? Etihad believes that a special wrapper will in fact be sufficient to keep the seats empty and maybe that is so in the Middle East.  

Color me skeptical that it would work on flights out of Newark NJ. Is it worth a scene to evict a seat snatcher?

Will flight attendants help out?

We’ll find out as the Etihad bidding rolls out – but I have real concern about how this would play in the US with passengers already inclined to be unruly.

The second concern is that bidding on a seat to stay empty is hard to handicap – what’s a rational bid?  Understand: the seat is empty when the bid is placed.  Etihad is not going to dislodge a fare paying passenger just because you want an empty seat next to you – unless of course you were to bid more than the passenger’s fare in which event you might as well save money and simply pay the fare to grab an empty seat.  

Buying a seat with the intent of keeping it empty doesn’t always work – here’s a recent case where it failed on Spirit – but most of the time it will.

But Etihad is letting you bid less than the fare  How much less? You don’t know and pretty much certainly you are bidding against other passengers and the highest bids will prevail.

What’s a rational bid? You don’t know.  Something less than the typical fare but who knows how much less?

How would you know if you are overbidding?

The math is more than a little maddening.

My third concern is this: will businesses reimburse these phantom fares for their travelers?  There’s just no knowing.

I’m no accountant but I believe the phantom fare would pass the IRS’s screening – that is, it looks like a legit tax deduction to me.

But that doesn’t mean a company will reimburse it – and many companies  have bars against whole classes of reimbursement.  Some refuse to pick up minibar charges.  Some won’t reimburse inroom movies.  Some won’t pick up bar bills.  A company pretty much can make its own rules about what it will reimburse and I believe most would be flummoxed about the cost of a phantom seat.

So they might not reimburse.

If I had an Etihad flight coming up – I don’t – I’d probably take a flyer and put in a nonsense bid, maybe $10 to keep the seat next to me empty.

Would Etihad take it?  Logically it should if it has empty seats, because $10 in hand is better than $0.

Would it?

Passengers who  bid – successfully or unsuccessfully – are  invited to use the comment form to relate their outcomes.  That’s how we will all learn how to bid smart.

And – as I said – if this Etihad gambit catches on, you know other carriers will follow. So just maybe the gamble is coming to a plane near us.

 

 

 

 

 

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by Robert McGarvey

 

You read it here first. Last week, Joe Brancatelli dropped the bomb that Marriott (and Starwood) were switching to what appears o be a chainwide 48 hour cancellation policy.  Cancel after that deadline and you pay a penalty of one night’s rate.

In a statement, Marriott said: “Guests will now be required to cancel their room reservation by midnight 48 hours prior to arrival in order to avoid a fee.”

Marriott explained it was making the change because of more lax current policies -generally allowing cancellations up to 24 hours before – there have been “a significant number of unsold rooms.”

I admit, I started business travel when free same day cancellations were the norm. Usually up to 6 p.m. the day of arrival.  Some homes  might have nudged it up to 4 p.m.  Either way, hotels – at least the ones that catered to business travelers – understood that plans change, often at the last minute, and we need flexibility in our hotel bookings.

Airlines of course in effect sell flexibility. Tickets that don’t allow for changes are much cheaper.  But I have long believed that I should fly with tickets I can change, easily and at no cost, and that’s my policy unless a client wants the cheaper fare and accepts the consequences.

For years, resorts have imposed onerous cancellation policies. I have seen some that require a week’s advance notice.  But, arguably, vacations are planned farther in advance and usually won’t be changed at the last minute.

Regular rooms at regular hotels booked by business travelers are a different matter.  With many clients, a Heraclitean flux is the norm. Hotels generally understood that.  Until recently.

It was back in 2014 that Marriott instituted the 24 hour cancellation policy.

Now it is upping the ante.  It got away with the switch to 24 hours, now it is banking on acceptance of 48 hours.

Watch other hotel operators do likewise.

But you don’t have to take it.

I won’t.

Understand this: in a number of key business travel cities, hotel occupancies are running high. The most recent figures I saw for Manhattan pegged average occupancy at78%.  Numbers are similar for Boston and Washington DC.

In San Francisco occupancy averages over 80%.

On some nights just about every month at least some hotels will sell out.

That’s why you are seeing hotel trade magazine articles like “How to Walk Guests” – and, by the way, what that means is that you may have a reservation you cannot cancel without penalty but the hotel may still not have a room for you.

Know that there are services – Johnny Jet in a recent piece fingered Roomer and Cancelon as such services — that, for a fee, will help you unload hotel reservations you cannot use. That’s an option for some.

Personally, what I plan to do is to not make reservations until the last minute.

The math is on our side.  Yes, there are those rare sell out nights but mainly we will have lots of choice.  When it comes to flying from Phoenix to Atlanta I have a handful of palatable choices so the power is with the airlines.

Not so with hotels.  The numbers favor us.

I am looking at Hotel Tonight and in Phoenix tonight I can book the FOUND:RE ($123), the Hyatt Regency ($149), or the Kimpton Palomar ($172).  There are many more hotels with availability.

Maybe Phoenix is an unfair example. It will be 116F today and 120F tomorrow and, yes, the city is empty.

In San Francisco tonight, I can sleep at my standby, the Hotel Carlton, for $149. Or I could try the Petite Auberge for $155 on Nob Hill. There are at least six more acceptable options in Hotel Tonight.

In Manhattan, the picking are slimmer but I would not sleep on a plastic chair in Port Authority.  I’d book into 6 Columbus for $155 or maybe Yotel, where I have planned to stay for some years but never quite have, for $119.  The options are acceptable.

In Washington D,C, four Kimptons have availability in Hotel Tonight. Stay in the neighborhood you prefer.  Dupont Circle, downtown, and more.

In Boston, Hotel Tonight splashes many choices on my screen. Personally I’d go for The Verb at $184. How can I resist an active part of speech?

Yes, I understand that for some trips we want to be in a specific hotel.  In those cases, if the reasons are good enough, I will suck it up and reserve in advance. Usually that’s for a meeting or for proximity to a specific executive.

But in most of my travel usually I only am looking for a specific neighborhood – and judging by what I see on Hotel Tonight I will do fine with same day booking.

What if – shudder – everything is sold out and I need a room in Manhattan? I’d book in Jersey City or Brooklyn.

Bottomline: we don’t have to be pushed around by aggressive hotel cancellation policies. We can resist.

I know what I will do.

 

 

 

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By Robert McGarvey

 

Twice in recent weeks I’ve been asked a question unlike any other I have heard from business travelers in the decades I’ve been involved in the field: Can my boss make me stay at a Trump hotel?

In both cases the company had scheduled a mid-sized meeting in a Trump property and, as is the norm, attendees were booked into the hotel too.

Room bookings of course figure into the price a meeting organizer pays for the meeting space.   When attendees go off property it can impact the cost of the meeting room.

Industry data show that some 34% of booking for events in the US are “outside the block,” to use the industry jargon.  

The usual reasons for booking outside the block are finding a lower rate elsewhere – which may result in a booking in the same hotel, incidentally – and also, as has happened to me many times in Las Vegas, the host hotel block has sold out. That latter reason is why I have attended many events at the Aria, but always stayed across the way at Vdara, not counted in any block.

But now we have the Trump factor and for various reasons – no need to itemize them – some people tell me they just aren’t comfortable staying in a Trump hotel.

How widespread is this? Hard to say.  The Telegraph has reported – citing data released by Democrats – that the Trump Washington DC hotel is awash in red ink.  

A Toronto Trump hotel apparently also is in a financial mess.  

In Azerbaijan, a Trump hotel project apparently has sputtered out, according to New Yorker reporting.

But what about the other US Trump hotels?

In the LA Times, reporter Hugo Martin – who noted it was unknown what impacts the Trump presidency had had on occupancy – said in a February story that third party booking sites are under increasing attacks by Trump critics who want the hotels with his name purged from the databases.

To my knowledge, no site has done so.

But – frankly – we just don’t know how the hotels in the US are doing and we aren’t likely to find out.  Trump’s company of course is private and it generally doesn’t own the hotels anyway, it manages them for a fee.  So it would not typically divulge how an individual hotel is faring.

But back to the question at hand.

There are Trump supporters of course and also those who want to  soak up a little of the Trump glitter and, for them, a stay in a Trump branded property is a quick path to showing support and experiencing Trumpness.

Can your boss make you stay there?

I am not a lawyer, nor am I an HR expert, but what I am told is that – yes – a boss can insist that you stay at a Trump hotel.

Just as companies have insisted for some time that their employees stay at hotel chain XYZ (usually due to negotiated corporate rates).  

You still don’t want to?

My advice is quietly and calmly ask your boss.  Find a nearby hotel – preferably at a lower rate – and make your case.  

Even if he/she says okay, you will still have to attend the meeting. Just sayin’.

You still don’t want to go?

There is no literature on the impacts of refusing Trump related travel. But, for most employees in most states, refusing business travel requests is an offense that can lead to firing with little opportunity for the employee to successfully challenge.

By all means if you don’t want to go, consult an employment lawyer. At least ask HR in your company.  

But don’t expect cheery news.

Just by the way,  the Washington Plaza Hotel – a personal favorite when in DC – is 1.1 miles from the Trump hotel in the District. I know where I would stay if attending a meeting in DC at Trump’s hotel. Even if I paid for the modestly priced Washington Plaza out of pocket. 

I would do likewise if I were sent to Washington DC on a business trip and booked by my client into the Trump.

Choices abound.

 

 

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