HotelChatter

Hotel Booking Tips / Wendy Perrin / How To / → All Tags

How to Deal When a Hotel Lowers Its Rates After You've Booked

Due to the state of the economy and, consequently, hotels scrambling to fill up rooms, rates are dropping all over the place — and chances are, you might fall victim to the dreaded "I-booked-my-hotel-too-early" situation. Yes, it's one of those times where the early bird doesn't catch the worm. If you've booked your hotel too far in advance, room rates may end up dropping between the time you've reserved your room and the time you arrive at the hotel.

But it's a'ight; that doesn't mean there's nothing you can do to score the lower rate. You're not stuck with the rate you reserved!

Wendy Perrin, who writes the Perrin Post over at Conde Nast Traveler's Concierge.com, gave killer advice to a reader who had written in with the very same dilemma. The reader had booked a trip to the Ritz-Carlton Cancun several months ago — and rates have dropped significantly since then. The guest wanted to know how to do go about politely checking to see if he or she could score a better rate.

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Hotel Bars / Hotel Restaurants / Interviews / How To / → All Tags

How To Hook Up in a Hotel Bar

Dushan Zaric and Jason Kosmas are the bartenders we'd want to be in another (non-hotel-obsessed) life. Smooth, creative and entertaining behind their West Village bar, Employees Only, they also know how pour us a stiff drink.

And ever since their book came out--You Didn't Hear It From Us: Two Bartenders Serve Women the Truth About Men, Making an Impression, and Getting What You Want--we've wanted to chat 'em up about why we keep missing out on hooking up at the hotel bars we so often frequent. Lo and behold, we were able to spend some quality time with Dushan learning his thoughts on the hotel bar scene today.

HC: So tell us about the book. Where did the idea come from, and why did you write it?

DZ: It came about because of a cocktail book Jay and I were writing that sort of became our bar training manual. Our friend, who is our agent, said we should do it because the manual had a lot of observation about what's really going on at a bar.

We're not emotionally attached to the movie playing out in front of us at the bar. And we said, "Why would we ever help the other team? It's the men--well, the boys--that need the help." And she said, "There's a lot of women that need your help."

After the jump, the full interview with Dushan Zaric.

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