tazi

I thought they did it so you would come back and stay again to get more of them!

dchristiva

I agree with those who said "stealing" is stealing. Sugarcoat or justify it any way you want, it's still wrong.

Pavane

I guess it comes down to a cultural thing. I was brought up never to take anything from anywhere. (I had been on my first around the world trip by age 7--and, ah...it was in a plane where all the seats made up into beds so it was a long time ago). But over the years I've been in many a home where all the towels came from hotels and nobody thought anything of it. They thought of them as souveniers.

We all know what is right though. And we all pay for the slipppage of others.

robb

That's the same reason I still write my name in my underwear long after mom stopped sending me to camp.

GeorgeMont

My mother-in-law has some Singapore Airlines soup spoons..... whenever I notice that I'm using one, I just ponder what she found so exciting about a soup spoon that caused her to take it. No matching sets to speak of... just soup spoons.

FWAAA

If my son/daughter wanted to steal hotel items, knowing full well that my company would likely be charged (making me look bad to my superiors in the process), I would be terribly disappointed at how my child had turned out, because it would mean that I had failed miserably at parenting.

oyster

And have you accused her of theft, or labelled her as the equivalent to a shoplifter?

GeorgeMont

I've never mentioned it to her and have not labeled her a thief. I like to pretend that the spoon accidentally fell into her carryon luggage (those trays are small you know) and she didn't realize it until she go home. When she called Sinapore Air to find out how to return it, they told her to just keep it.

jfe

Let him who has never taken anything cast the first stone.

Sorry, just got carried away

I did "borrow" a spoon from the Hilton once

thesaints

"Stealing" is stealing only when you get caught (and sentenced).
Thank goodness we live in a capitalist country and not in the church summer camp.

da_guy

Do hotel pens count? I must have "borrowed" hydnreds of them.

jabrams72

Given the issues Sol Melia has been causing, here Easy 1,000 AA miles and here Delta I think their towels are fare game. How many towels can you get for 1,000 miles (or vice versa)

oyster

OK, in all seriousness where do you draw the line? And more importantly how can any one of us define where that line should be for someone else?

For one person taking a pen will be stealing, for others it would be something more valuable such as an ashtray.

AlexisLe

I have guilt issues just taking the bathroom amenities.

On a recent visit to the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, I phoned guest services to let them know that there was only one robe in our room, where there should have been two. I was concerned we would be charged. Housekeeping appeared about 20 minutes later with a robe. When we returned from lunch, there was a bag on our bed which included a luxurious maroon and gold robe, embroidered with the Venetian crest with a card that simply said "compliments of Venetian Hotel & Casino guest services." A much nicer robe than the ones supplied in the room. When I called guest services,
they said it was a complimentary gift of the hotel and thanked me for our patience. If I'd only learned this lesson about patience when I was younger...

Thank goodness my house guests don't come for a weekend and leave with my towels, dishware, etc in their suitcases!

alanwar

Not to be a moralist, but stealing *is* stealing no matter how you try to justify it. I've got a vacation rental and the deal is that anything I want to keep has got to be locked up or else it may just disappear. It is a real shame that the few people who do steal things ruin it for everyone else. I left out DVDs, CDs, books and games and after a few months they were gone. So now you have to go pay $4 to rent a dvd to watch at my place instead of just enjoying the ones I left.

Alan