This is probably going to run long, so the summary is "No one is responsible for your expectations but you."

Here are two opposite examples from my experience:

Many years ago, I was moving from Alabama to Washington state. I was driving alone, with a U-Haul trailer, west on I-10 and then north on I-5. I was pretty young, and on a very tight budget - but I had misjudged how severely the trailer would impact my gas mileage. By Texas, I realized that "the plan" was out the window, and everything was going to have to be secondary to gas money. I decided to drive as many hours per day as possible, sleep in the car, and skip meals. At about 9pm, I pulled off the freeway into a little nothing town somewhere in New Mexico, planning to find a place off the road to park my car & trailer and grab a nap. I pass a little motor-court motel with a sign out front that advertises "Rooms - $7"

How horrible could it be? I thought. This was 1988, so it was going to cost me about 2 meals at McDonald's to try it out. In today's money, it would probably work out to $13-$14.

When I checked in, they directed me to a place to park where I could back my trailer up against a wall, so that my stuff would be safe. The room itself was more or less what you would expect. No phone. No TV. It didn't even have a tub. The shower was a 4'x4' tiled area with a chest high wall separating it from the rest of the bathroom. The worst part was that the shower head came out of a 4" hole in the wall, about 5 feet from the floor. I am only 5'9", and I had to get on my knees to rinse the shampoo from my hair!

But.... when I turned back the covers on the bed, I discovered starched, ironed cotton sheets - and one of the most comfortable mattresses I have ever slept on. It was magnificent!

On the other end of the price spectrum, many years later I decided to splurge by taking my wife to Seattle for a long weekend to celebrate her birthday. We were much better off than I was back in the day, but still a long way from wealthy.

I wanted it to be special for her, and decided that most of the budget would go toward a high end hotel. I did a bunch of research, checking prices, looking for deals, etc. Some were clearly out of our price range - the W, Four Seasons, Edgewater for example. I found a coupon deal for the Renaissance that was going to work out to about $180/night (2001 dollars). I didn't tell her where we were staying - the nice hotel was going to be a birthday surprise.

The day finally came, and I ended up having to work late. got home about 6pm and still had to finish packing and drive to Seattle from just outside of Portland. We arrive at the hotel, hand the car off to the valet, and go to the front desk to check in.

Where they are very sorry that they "don't have a record of my reservation". Not only that, they claim that not only do they not have a room at that price, they claim that they have *never* had a room at that price.

I'm tired. and I'm pissed. I just drove for almost 4 hours after working for 10, and now they are trying to weasel out of my reservation which priced out at nearly a 50% discount on the room that I reserved. I managed to not yell, but I don't know how.

I asked them if they had any rooms available -"yes". I asked how much it would cost me - their least expensive room was $350 per night. I told them that I would take that, but only for one night, and only because I was exhausted and beyond dealing with it. But I assured them that I would be moving out in the morning.

in the elevator, as we were finally going to my room, I realized that I had my laptop with me, and that as soon as I could get internet I could get into my email and find the confirmation - and I was going to go back down to the desk and really let them have it.

So, I find the email, and call my wife over - "See? Right here. Renaissance Seattle, $180 per night, 3 nights starting tonight."

Wife says "Honey, this is the Four Seasons."

Yep, I went to the wrong hotel and tried to check in.

So I called down to the front desk (SO relieved that I didn't make a scene earlier) and explained about the mistake that I had made. I told them that I appreciate them accommodating me, and that we would check out and move the the Renaissance the next day.

About 5 minutes later (close to midnight by now) there is a subtle knock on our door. It was the assistant General Manager, who apologized profusely for the "confusion" - like it was somehow his fault that I am a dumbass - He said that "for our trouble, he could reduce our room rate to $240", though he couldn't match the rate for the other hotel. He also said that he could extend that rate for the duration of our trip if we wanted to avoid the hassle of packing and moving, and that he would personally contact the Renaissance and cancel our reservation for us if that's what we chose.

The extra $60/night wasn't trivial for us back then, but we opted to stay because of the dignity that they treated us with (even if they laughed like crazy at me once they were back in the break room).

Two other things that really made them stand out - over the 4 days that we stayed there, every single time we went outside, the doorman greeted me with "Good morning/afternoon/evening, My Qwkynuf, will you be needing your car?" - even though I never once told him my name. One afternoon as we were walking around Seattle, I mentioned to my wife that I had had a favorite restaurant when I lived there as a child. On the way back into the hotel, I stopped at the concierge desk and said "When I lived here back in the 1970s, there used to be a restaurant near the University called Ivar's Salmon House. Is it still around?" She said "Absolutely - would you like for me to make you a reservation"?

In the amount of time that it took us to cross the lobby, ride the elevator to our floor, and make our way to our room, the concierge had somehow managed to make us a reservation, print it out, put it in an envelope, and slide it under our door before we got there.

In short, it's the service that makes it a high-end hotel, not the price.