An Ocean View Room (Fragmenting Your Hotel Stay)

The ironic thing about

traveling for a living is that when it comes time for a vacation, the last

thing you want to do is to fly anywhere. 

I told my wife, “This year, I’d love to just drive up the cabin and

relax and fish for a week.”  She wasn’t

having any of that.  Part of our deal is

that she collects the reward points while I do the traveling.  It’s the only thing that makes it more

bearable for us being apart.  Trust me

when I tell you that if a non-traveling woman gets her hands on a million

Marriott points… she’s going somewhere, with or without you.  There can be no doubt!

One drawback to using

points for your hotel stay is that actual cash paying guests get priority.  I suppose it should be that way, but it’s

frustrating, nonetheless.  For example in

February of 2009, I tried to book a beach-front bungalow suite with a full

kitchen for our Hawaii trip for Valentine’s day of 2010 (yes, I’m a “Romantic”

at heart; make fun of me if you wish, but I’ll be in Hawaii this February,

suckers), but was told “I’m sorry, it’s too early to consider a booking for

people with points rather than cash.” 

This didn’t phase me.  I simply

asked, “When is a good time to call to try to book this?”  The reservation operator told me, “We open

that block of rooms 6 weeks in advance of booking dates.  Would you like to reserve a different

room?”  Ah-HA!  So, the reservation bank is open, just not

the whole bank.

With some polite

“finagling” on the phone, I eventually hung up with a reservation in a

non-ocean view room and the “hope” that I could upgrade later.  My plan was to call them one time per month

to ask if anything was available and if it was still to early to upgrade my

reservation.  For the first few months I

was unsuccessful, but then it hit me… What if I tell them that I’m flexible enough

to move from room to room?  You see, when

reservations are made, they are blocked into the computer and the computer uses

that information to determine what’s available. 

I had a hunch based on this example, of two families booking rooms in a

small two-room hotel:

• The

  Smiths reserve room 1 from Sun-Wed for a 4 day vacation.

• The

  Johnsons reserve room 2 from Wed-Sat for a five day vacation.

• I

  call and ask for a room from Sun-Sat, but the computer doesn’t see an open

  block of time in a room for 7 days, since both rooms appear to be booked for a

  portion of the time I asked for.  The

  best they can offer is to have me call back to see if there’s a cancellation.

What if the computer knew I

was flexible enough to stay in room 2 from Sun-Wednesday morning, and then move

my stuff into room 1 on Wednesday afternoon to stay for the rest of the

week?  If you tell a reservation

coordinator that you’re willing to fragment your stay, that will open a vastly

new realm of possibility for you.

The next time I called, I

was on the phone working with the reservation coordinator for a long time, but

I ended up with three nights in an ocean view room (and a balcony), and then I

agreed to check out of the hotel, and walk 300 yards down the beach to the

hotel’s sister property where I’ll check in mid-week to a beach front bungalow

with a kitchen.

Normally, you wouldn’t have

to make such allowances when you make a reservation a year in advance.  If you’re using coupons or points, or if you’re

making some reservations at the last minute, being willing to fragment can save

you if you need to be in a certain hotel.  This has worked famously for several

co-workers I know who have to attend a corporate conference at the last minute,

etc.

EXTRA: If you have questions for Ken regarding

business travel, hotels, airplanes, etc, please send an email!  Your questions

will be recorded and Ken will answer the best ones in his Ask the

Expert podcast show.