It seems that a trend now is to have one phone number to call (one button to push on the hotel phone) for all services. Marriott, InterContinental, and W seem to have this as a brand-wide standard, and some other hotels have it, too. This is contrasted to the traditional model of a hotel phone with a handful of buttons -- one for room-service, one for reception, one for housekeeping, etc.

Which do you prefer? Of course, in theory the single point of contact makes most sense. The guest shouldn't have to figure out whom to call for his selected service (Housekeeping or room service for ice? Reception or concierge for the bellman?).

On the other hand, I have had frustrations with this system in two ways. One, the single contact is a single point of failure. Sometimes when I call the single number, it rings and rings and no one picks up. Outrageous, I know, but the hotel should never set up such a service if they can't deliver. Second, a lot of times the person simply transfers me -- so the phone rings several times, someone answers, I say that I would like to order room service, and they transfer me to another ringing phone. In this case, I would have rather just cut the non-value-adding middle-man and called room service myself.

Thoughts?