So do HH and HP have OLCI now? Thought that was only at the fullservs.

Now for the free advice from somebody who used to arrive late a lot. Just take the airport hotel on the arrival night and then move on to wherever you need to be. That is what they are for.

Meaning travel cushion is a wise thing to build in. Learned that from a wise boss who encouraged arriving early and planning on staying a day longer than you thought you had to. But she was willing to sign the expense account to pay for it.

The other thing is somebody needs to be facilitating your travel. There is not a fingerprint test to push "check me in". You can still ask to see where the room is, and if it is not the very last one protest. Usually it is not preassigned but just a room taken out of inventory anyway.

What are these benefits?

Are they standard as dictated by Hyatt or at the hotel's discretion?

With a little bit of research, it seems hotel discretion:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hyatt...ng-walked.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hyatt...d-diamond.html

Add in a 5 minute phone call to the front desk when checking in online. Ask politely.

Room rate and prepaid are different, and other factors come into play as well.

So, the first thing that happens on a sold-out night is the non-guaranteed, 6PM hold reservations get dumped right at 6PM. There are very few of those these days, but back in MY day . . . . I saw a lot of crestfallen guests who showed up late and realized their secretaries had never guaranteed their reservations. Or their plans changed and they were later than expected. Or . . . .

Then the F.O. mgr looks at all the arrivals and tries to get a better sense of what might happen. If there's a big convention checkin, you consult their past no-show factor (you've already done that in deciding how much to overbook, but you look again). If there are any odd looking internal reservations (from Sales or Catering, for example), you might call up those depts. and ask if their clients are still coming. It's amazing how sloppy and careless they are--they care about nothing once they've made the sale. So you might be able to pick off a few there.

You also have to occupy the parlors (the living rooms to the suites must be used when the bedrooms are occupied as normal rooms instead of suites). Ideally, reservations has been doing this for a while, offering a discount rate (or better yet, all your suites have been sold as such). But often there are some left over, so as people come in, you offer that option. (I was also exceptionally good at selling parlors--I once had a family of five thanking me for cramming them into a parlor with a foldout sofa, a rollaway bed, and a crib.)

As the evening wears on, you continue to monitor the remaining reservations. VIPs you keep. Cash deposits (again, rare these days in most properties) are also likely to show. Same for prepaid (e.g., Priceline and Hotwire, packages). But for the most part, it's first-come, first-served for the remaining rooms unless there's a really noticeable rate differential and you're feeling VERY confident the higher-rated room WILL show up.

While you wait, you call around for availability at comparable hotels and ask the F.O. mgrs there if you can send over some walks, and if so, what the rate would be. It's typically very low, as every big hotel gets into this situation eventually, and you want to maintain good relations with your peers. What really sucks is when EVERYBODY is sold out and you have to send people to fleabag hotels miles away. I never experienced that personally, but I heard about it.

I've heard of Priceline people being walked. That's just bad management, or an exceptional situation. Since you already have a means of payment, just check the room in and run the room and tax whether they show up or not. Voila! Room filled! They're a sure thing in terms of occupancy (but they weren't around when I was in the business, so what do I know?)

So, the moral of this story is: if you REALLY don't want to be walked, don't arrive late at night.

P.S.--horrible idea to arrive late anyhow, because in many hotels after 10 or 12, night audit takes over the desk, and they often have no idea what they're doing. They're accountants, not customer service, and it shows.

Why are Priceline guests treated better? Once the deadline for cancelling a guaranteed room passes, essentially all reservations are prepaid. In fact, one can argue that there's absolutely no brand loyalty or sense of product differentiation when someone has obviously just picked the cheapest hotel, so that person should either get a terrible room or be the first one to be walked unless you're walking guests to a much better property.

(I assume we are talking about the opaque bookings; wonder how often those occur on an oversold night since hotels presumably use them mostly to fill empty rooms when they are fairly certain they won't ge better rates?)

Perhaps because Priceline has collected payment for it?

How would the refund for the "walked" night work for a PL guest? Check from hotel to guest? Would the hotel advise PL to refund the night?