Unless there is some really good reason not to, I don't understand why you wouldn't just share the KING size bed. King's are enormous.

Well said mikew99. I recently "hotelsurfed" a fellow FTer's Hyatt hotel suite in 2 separate cities for a total of 2 weeks. Since I wasn't paying, and he was extending me the favour, I automatically assumed that I'd be taking the couch. Anything else would've been rude!

Seriously? Without question! A guest is a guest. If I am welcoming someone into my home, or treating them to a hotel room, or anything else, then they get the best and I make do.

I am the one in control of the situation, so I can make sure that what's left over for me is adequate for my basic needs, and after all it's only temporary.

A night on a sofa isn't going to kill me, and I feel much better having been a good host than having managed to maximize my own advantage at the expense of my friend.

+1
Very well said.
as I have said previously, one has to be exposed at an early age to think of the guest as THE GUEST, that s/he deserves the best available option. It is unto them to decide whether to accept or not, again based on the culture s/he were brought up.

Guest rooms exist. I have never heard of giving the master bedroom.

You need more exposure to more cultures ! :)

Yes, this is a cultural difference, the "guest room" is a western culture thing, many cultures around the world don't have that extra room (mostly because of space limitations). That being said, that guy was just a friend traveling to the same city as the OP, not a cherished invited guest to the OP's home.

davie355 is entirely in the right. He "paid" for the room, he gets the best bed. The friend who received the "free" room should have just taken the sofa bed without putting davie355 in the awkward position of having to claim the better bed.

Davie355 is quite wrong. He should not have been PC polite if he wanted the bed. He just wanted to " give" the bed to the friend expecting fully that he will do the decent thing ! Just backfired.

There is no way I am giving my master bedroom for a guest, except in the case of parents/grandparents if need be. If I have guest over, however, I make sure that I am a good and and hospitable host, making sure the guest is comfortable, has a nice bed, and good stay.

In the case of this thread: The paying party gets the first say of who gets the bed/sofa bed. If the paying party wants the bed, that person should get the first dibs. If I am a guest of this situation, I would not assume anything otherwise than a sofa bed. Otherwise, the other party can just pay for the own bed/room and there would be no issue like this thread.

Davie was wrong. He would have been fine laying (sic) claim to the bed. He should have mentioned it first, but his friend (right or wrong, good intentions or not) brought the subject up before he did. Cest la vie. At that point, Davie WAS NOT HONEST. He clearly wanted and expected to get the bed, but that is not what he said. He said he didn't care and then got upset. Nobody to blame but himself. Either be generous or be honest about what you want/feel you deserve. Don't get wrapped when you say it doesn't matter when it clearly does.

^

While I totally agree this is the proper way to treat a guest, I do not see the "host-guest relationship" in this hotel room sharing situation.

^ Hmmmm, being honest and upfront. What a concept! ;)

Exactly. Offering something to appear generous and then holding a grudge if the person accepts sounds like a pretty crappy thing to do, IMHO.

I think inviting someone to your home to stay is different than traveling with someone on a trip. In my home, I have given up my bedroom, but on a trip where I'm using my hotel points, I will take the king bed if that friend isn't contributing anything else. Perhaps your friend really doesn't understand our hobby and looks at that room as totally free. So he concludes that it cost you nothing, and that you are on an equal footing. We all know it takes time and effort to accumulate points and miles, but how many of our friends get that! I know mine don't!!

I think we are being hard on OP (and from a hindsight 20/20 point of view), in many way he acted as the "average normal" person would do, offered to accommodate his friend, expecting that the friend would know and follow social norms given the situation. He was hoping that even when he reversed the question, hoping until the end that his friend will "get it", but the friend didn't. Offering the bed to the friend in this context is not appropriate, as it results in the friend essentially taking advantage of the situation (and making himself look ungrateful) and hurting the OP's feelings.

The OP cannot be faulted for failing predict that the friend will ask for the bed, as this would actually be a low likelihood scenario (very few people will actually do this in such a situation), so the OP (unconsciously and correctly) acted based on the most likely scenario, and he didn't mentioned anything from the start (as in saying "you are welcome to share the room, if you don't mind taking the sofabed") because even such statement invokes some minor social discomfort. In retrospect, this would have been better to have said that than what happened, however, the OP unconsciously played the odds that such a low probability event (maybe 20%?) won't occur (even though, in this case, unfortunately, it did). In other words, the OP acted properly based on the information he had at the time.

So, based on this experience, now the OP has learned that he needs to be more clear up front with this particular friend in the future, if not with all people in similar situations (or at least those that are not very sensitive to the nuances of social conventions/interactions, or have a tendency to overstep boundaries and take advantage of situations).

I agree but you're conflating offers of generosity with idiomatic expressions and general customs that resemble these offers.

If you tell a friend to "make himself at home" while you're away, you would not really expect to come back to a trashed living room and an empty fridge.