Originally Posted by
BenjaminNicholas
I disagree. You lose face. It IS a bribe and it's nothing like bellying up to a blackjack table. Wynncore employees might offer a higher floor or a different bed combo, but that is not an upgrade folks. Front desk is told that anyone caught taking money for a better room will be terminated. I don't think it's worth risking embarrassment or someone's job for a measly $20-50 bribe.
Let me repeat: No one here has used the $20 trick to score a Tower Suite, Parlor or Salon from a priceline/hotwire/hotels.com booking. If it ever happened in the past, it ain't happening now. Times have changed. I've stayed at Wynncore over 80 times in the past five years, I know the property, as well as most of the managers and pit crew. Why not do yourself a favor, save the trouble and simply book the room you want (or, at the very least, book with FHR or Virtuoso and hope for the best).
BN
Claiming that you lose face, and that this is a REAL loss, is complete nonsense. Either the upgrade tip works, or it doesn't. There is ZERO cost to having it fail, unless you spend your life trying to impress hotel front desk clerks. As I said, I didn't score a suite with the $20 tip, but I DID score a real bona-fide upgrade, that Wynn would have upsold me for $130 rather than my $20 tip.
There is nothing to lose in trying it. If it fails, it fails, and it costs you NOTHING. It also might even work, as it did for me at Wynn.
So let me get this straight, getting a room that I otherwise would have had to pay $130 for in an upsell, for a $20 tip instead, actually cost me a loss of face, and was not an actual upgrade, despite the higher price and the fact it was actually the upgrade I had asked for and would have had to pay for had the tip not worked? What planet do you live on, Benjamin Nicholas?