Nickel and diming

Hey…..15 minutes….that’s only 3$ an hour. if inept only a $’an hour.

 

I agree with this sentiment, but MGM/Vdara has to realize they are renting out a room at what they are advertising as a 4.5-5 star property. At some point, they just need to send a housekeeper up to make up the bed and stop trying to squeeze every dime out of their customers, that's definitely not a 4.5-5 star experience. If it's a labor shortage issue, then the booking site should just ask if you would like the sofa bed made up on arrival, so it's done while the maid is cleaning the room.

Such a shame that Marriott basically threw away the Starwood program. If the goal is to actually build brand loyalty, Starwood knew how to do it. Now with almost all programs, the asterisks outweigh the benefits. i.e. Complementary enhanced room upgrade at check-in when available, not including suites. So in layman's terms, you're not getting anything.

 

Can the hospital TV fee be billed to insurance? Asking for a friend...

I'd pay a TV fee if they had the Playboy Channel

 

In the summer my resort fee would be $10 for the pool, and that’s it. If I need extra data, I can change my monthly data plan to unlimited for far less than $12 a day. I would love to see this happen, but it won’t. Just like say cable tv will never go al-la-cart. They love making you pay for things, whether you use them or not. It’s impossible to watch all the channels on cable, but for me, canceling cable tv, and going with say a mix of Hulu and other streaming services would cost more, due to the bundle discount I get with Comcast. Big business just doesn’t care anymore if they are screwing us, because they know they can.

 

Was at harrah's Joliet last night and got the hiccups after a lot of beers. At the tables, I asked the waitress for some lemon slices in bitters to take care of the hiccups and said I would even pay for them. She said they have no lemon slices at the bar for anything.
That was weird

 

When I was 14 I had a week-long hospital stay and my father, bless his heart, paid for my television. Of course, it was a small B&W model with something like 4 stations.

 

They don't have the marginal labor to do this sort of thing right now. They can't get the rooms cleaned. They can't spend 15-30 minutes on the phone with you, flagging someone down, then sending them to do this.

 

They literially can't hire enough housekeepers right now is the issue. People can't get rooms cleaned every day at 4 star places. They would rather piss you off with this charge than have a room not get cleaned.

 

Nickel and Dime…

....how about reusable paper cups for alcoholic beverages;
AC set at 85;
melted water replacing ice;
bring your own linens;
the “you looked at the menu” fee;
take a survey to ride the elevators;
The Last Cocktail Waitress Theatre Show;
and...ready...2:3 blackjack.

The executives at Eldorado just had multiple orgasms reading this….

 

They can't hire housekeepers at the current wage they are offering. That is the key issue. I'm pretty sure if they bumped up the wages a bit, they could hire.

The visitor volume is there. They are charging regular prices now as well for rooms and also keeping up with their $45 a night resort fee.

The corporate bean counters are trying to squeeze every possible dollar at the risk of irritating guests. There will eventually be a typing point, I just don't know what that is.

 

With the homeless issues in that area, it makes sense.

 

I had my room cleaned 9/10 nights at PH and Harrah's (May/June), even over Memorial Day Weekend when it was sold out. So they are doing it at 4 star places. Also stayed at Plaza and although it was by request only, you could request daily. Saw plenty of housekeepers at all 3 properties as well. Housekeeping and cocktail waitresses (shockingly) are two areas where I actually didn't notice a shortage.

This is really the crux of it.

 

Honest question here. I thought housekeepers in Vegas were union? If they were receiving benefits that made it more lucrative to stay home, I get that. But if they aren't, what kind of work are they doing instead? Most of the housekeepers I've interacted with were super nice, hard working ladies, but did not speak enough English for me to have a conversation with. Isn't the union supposed to negotiate an acceptable wage? It's ok if you say I have no idea what I'm talking about, because I really don't. I just thought I had read somewhere that they were union.

 

Acceptable wage in 2019 isn’t the same in 2021..

 

So many patrons with so many issues... I just go, pay my tab enjoy the good food, service, gaming, pool, accommodations and mini-bar and return home with a smile on my face.

 

The issue surrounding why people are going back or not are not as simple as 'offer more money' to get them back or 'stop playing extra unemployment' so they have to come back. The pandemic showed a lot of people what their companies think of them when it came to laying people off and furloughs and then bringing them back. There is also the idea that a lot of people took the 'opportunity' to find better, or higher paying, jobs when their companies got rid of them.

I think that a lot of companies thought that the market for everyone would be so bad coming out of the pandemic that the former employees would jump at the chance to come back and many told their former employees to 'get bent'. I work for a restaurant company and we had this issue. It was only a few months ago when we smartened up and raised the starting salary to be more competitive and people started applying more. That change only came after our execs noticed that Chipotle was paying something like $15-$16 an hour starting wages and they had no issues hiring people back, or getting our people to apply there. On the support staff side (IT, Marketing, etc) almost all the people we furloughed last year who came back a few months later have now left to find better jobs because they were all basically told, when they were furloughed, that the company didn't find them valuable enough to keep around so they took that as a sign to find a company, or job, that would when the next pandemic hits.

 

They can't hire housekeepers at the current wage they are offering. That is the key issue. I'm pretty sure if they bumped up the wages a bit, they could hire.

Bang bang!! Labor especially manual labor is done with being mistreated.. Can charge 450 a night plus 45 dollar resort fee and not pay a living wage? The working men and women are starting to wake up after about 60 years and realizing who really has the power.. So the bean counters can’t squeeze labor so they start to nickel and dime the customer.. Would be awesome if Labor and Customer ever came together.

 

So what exactly is a living wage, or an acceptable wage or a fair share ? Or is it like trying to define Pornography .You can't really define it but you know it when you see it.

 

Well, I certainly want people to receive a living wage. I worked minimum wage jobs in my life and it was hard work. But I think back to after the Mandalay shooting and how it was mandatory that housekeeping routinely checked your room. During my May visit during the 4 nights I stayed to my knowledge no one set foot in my room. Whether the employees come back to a better wage, or a new crop of workers willing to accept less steps in is one scenario. The other is that they will scale down daily housekeeping to an optional or additional fee service. Ideally, everyone gets a better wage and the customer is not squeezed to death. You think so? Nah, me neither.

 

They have raised the pay and tried to mandate OT. The people aren't willing to do the job.

There are service gaps EVERYWHERE in Vegas right now. It's not like housekeeping is the only pain point.