FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - will the $20 trick work in Hawaii? (or does it stay in Vegas?)
Old Mar 6, 2008, 10:51 am
  #2  
kaukau
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Lahaina, Hawai'i
Programs: HA Pua. Platinum WP, PR, QF, UA, AA, DL, NW Prince Preferred
Posts: 4,786
Originally Posted by airborn
Searched the FF and do not find anything outside the Las Vegas Forum. Planning a two week trip to three difefrent islands. I am curious if the $20 dollar trick, leaving a folded $20 bill between drivig licence and credit card to the front desk clerk at the time of check also works in Hawaii. Would be nice to be upgraded to suite/sea View/sea front/high floor/corner etc...

Anybody willing to share their experience on this matter??
Yeah it works. On O'ahu, we got upgraded to a corner suite once for a bag of beef jerky we brought back from Vegas for that exact purpose; but on the Big Island we got shot down for an upgrade for a box of Krispy Kremes we brought over from Maui - they did, however, send us up a bottle of champagne with a thank you note!

As a veteran plier of the $20 trick, let me offer this advice: don't be too coy about it: it might not get picked up on by the desk clerk. We say right up front to the desk clerk at check-in: "By the way, if you can find any complimentary upgrades for us that you think will improve our stay here, we'd like to tip you a $20 for your efforts."

Tipping in general for service is standard in hotels; front desk clerks don't get tipped that often; they often give complimentary upgrades to complainers/whiners/ungrateful creeps who tip them nothing: why shouldn't they give a complimentary upgrade to a nice person who offers them a tip?

Hope this helps,

Aloha kakou!

P.S. Forgot the best: on Lana'i, we got upgraded from garden view to ocean view for an 18 pc. bucket of KFC we brought over from Lahaina!!!!!




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Last edited by kaukau; Mar 6, 2008 at 11:23 am
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