06 Dec 2004 | Alec said...

I seem to remember a certain design company who wouldn't merge two experimental projects into one, after the customer signed up for paid service. Repeated gentle emails including an offer to pay in advance for the service were all dismissed. A matter of principle. Still not recommending said design company and not likely to soon do so, despite satisfaction with the service.

Businesses sometimes make the strangest decisions. No doubt the food prices make sense from the inside. Or not.

06 Dec 2004 | Benjy said...

Damn, I know that feeling! Just last night, my girlfriend and I were staying at a nice hotel downtown Chicago on a weekend pkg. she'd won. After shopping on Michigan Ave., the Marshall Field's windows, a warm up in the hot tub, we finally got around to dinner at 10pm. We went to the hotel's bar, but they only had fried appetizers at that hour, so we resorted to room service. We ordered a small salad, a cheeseburger and a grilled chicken sandwich. Ultimately cost us $53! Salad was $6, burger and chicken were $12.50 and 13.50. $3.95 delivery fee, plus 15% service fee and sales tax. Tip for the guy who brought it up. Then at checkout it was subject to Chicago's 14% hotel tax. When we know we could go to any sports bar in town and get the same thing for $25, it does leave a bad taste.

06 Dec 2004 | richard said...

I've stayed in a couple places where the room service menu wasn't extremely overpriced, and I think that it was a place in San Francisco... can't recall the place, but it was a mini suite right downtown. Nice old place, and the food was the only thing not extremely over-priced. The room was robbery, so I'm assuming they were being kind with the food prices - lessen the suffering.

A lot of places I've been have a super vigilant desk that won't allow deliveries in from outside restaurants, either... so you have to sneak food in as if Cineplex Odeon or Famous Players had entered the hotel business.

I really love the phone charges and the other added services... like $15 NON-PORN movie rentals... $15 to watch a Tom Hanks movie? That's crazy.

06 Dec 2004 | DXO said...

Um, yeah, your instincts were correct on the "poor me" front.

How about this innefective user experience: due to the lack of a reliable, ubiquitous banking system, nascent Iraqi troops have no direct deposit and have to stand in an exposed, poorly designed line at a predictable (end of the month) time to get paid, leading to a high number of car-bomb-ramming blood/brain-matter-on-the-pavement user experiences.

Now THAT's a customer experience worth changing...

06 Dec 2004 | Paul Randall said...

I stayed one night at a La Quinta in San Antonio, TX and paid over $100 for a very nice room. I did n0t watch any TV in that room however, because there was not one scintilla of programming available for free. I just wanted to catch the news or a Seinfeld rerun or something.

Sports, Movies and Pr0n were the main menu items if I recall. No network TV to be had. Not even for ready money.

This, like your roomservice annoyance, is just vampiric opportunism. They gain a little leverage off your travel weariness, or your instinct to just splurge a little and then they nickle and dime you at the dollar level.

This stuff is like a kind of termite gnawing away at the load-bearing beams of our national soul.

06 Dec 2004 | matthew said...

while we're venting, why are we paying airlines $50 in "administrative fees" whenever we change a ticket? what costs are we covering there? i had to change my thanksgiving tickets; we all had the stomach flu and couldn't fly. it took 30 seconds per ticket to transfer it over to the new flight times -- how does that translate to a $50 per ticket change fee?

06 Dec 2004 | Darrel said...

We're living in the age where successful business models are now based on 'as many fees as we can stick the customer with as possible'

On the plus side, I'm finding a lot more hotels offering free Wi-Fi.

06 Dec 2004 | One of several Steves said...

while we're venting, why are we paying airlines $50 in "administrative fees" whenever we change a ticket? what costs are we covering there? i had to change my thanksgiving tickets; we all had the stomach flu and couldn't fly. it took 30 seconds per ticket to transfer it over to the new flight times -- how does that translate to a $50 per ticket change fee?

It probably doesn't cost them much at all, no. But it's the price you pay for getting a cheap airfare. It's not like they don't make it clear from the start that you're buying a non-refundable ticket, and if you want to change it you'll incur penalties.

And you're lucky it was only $50. Most airlines are $100 for changes now.

06 Dec 2004 | YoungHistorians said...

I can't imagine where that $50 goes-it sure didn't help US Airways!

06 Dec 2004 | Benjy said...

I think to some extent the $50 or $100 ticket change fee is an opportunity cost, as the airline may not be able to sell your former seat, particularly if it's close to the flight's date.

Anyway, I used to be able to beat those fees all the time by simply calling to change the reservation, and then when they'd ask if I wanted to pay the change fee then I'd say I don't have my credit card on me and I'll pay it when I check in for my flight. I was never asked to pay the fee... although the last time I tried that was before 9/11 and the ensuing financial problems with the airlines.

06 Dec 2004 | Darrel said...

what costs are we covering there?

Again, fees are no longer seen as necessary cost covering measures, but rather as actual revenue streams.

Though in the case of the airline ticket, as Benjy says, it's more of a 'deterrent' fee than an actual cost of transaction. They don't want to make it too easy for people to randomly change their tickets.

06 Dec 2004 | sloan said...

I always order delivery from one of the restaurants nearby that the hotel so nicely put in my room. It is always cheaper and often faster service!

06 Dec 2004 | YoungHistorians said...

I always order delivery from one of the restaurants nearby that the hotel so nicely put in my room. It is always cheaper and often faster service!

Yeah, but half the time the resturant pays to have it's name/menu in your room.

07 Dec 2004 | Ruben said...

What's wrong with ditching the idea of getting foot at a hotel and going to epicurious for great restaurants? I was just in D.C., and the hotel's food, which supposedly won an award, wasn't the quality I expected. However, jaleo, zaytinya, and teaism were astounding restaurants.

07 Dec 2004 | Paperhead said...

Devil's Advocate for a minute.

A lot of hotels have restaurant opening times.

At those times there's a huge number of trained staff working away in the kitchen. The stove's hot, the ovens are heated, they're making a big ass pile of food and they benefit from those pesky economies of scale.

Most people call room service when the restaurant is closed.

So, they have to get you something made up in the kitchen when the kitchen's not really set up and running and they're not really in meal-making mode, and then they carry it to your room for you. Then they have to cover the fact that there'll be extra staff time to remove all the crap from your room later, plus the probable extra cleaning in the room.

...and everyone charges more for a rush job anyway.

07 Dec 2004 | Michael said...

Those numbers sound oddly familiar!

Great, great, great presentation this afternoon, by the way. You really shook people up.

08 Dec 2004 | Qasim said...

Jason et al:

December 6th... would this be the Boston Seaport per chance?

q.//

09 Dec 2004 | beto said...

That's why my favorite hotels are of the all-inclusive kind. Unfortunately, most of these seem limited to beach and vacation areas - not business venues. With plenty of (monetary) reason, I see...

12 Dec 2004 | leo said...

I want to know about the duty of room service.Can you tell me?