My number one pet peave about hotels: if you request a room with 2 beds, 9 times out of 10, it will have 2 double beds, not 2 queens. And this applies even to the "quality" chains like Marriott, Westin and Hilton. And it comes at a time when the hotels are pouring all this money into "designer" beds with fancy pillow tops and high-thread-count sheet.

In reality, though, if you have to share a bed, you really want the bigger bed over any other consideration. I'm sure very few couples sleep in double beds at home, and even the kids do much better sharing a queen than they do a double.

So why do hotels "cheap out" and provide only doubles? I would think the incremental cost of providing 2 queens over 2 doubles would be nominal, and the guest satisfaction it would bring (and therefore repeat business!) would be substantial.

Maybe since fewer people buy double beds for their homes, hotels are able to get a heavily discounted price?

But then the question is why manufacturers continue to make double beds in the first place....

Many hotel rooms I have been in that had two double beds could not have really held two queen beds without touching the walls...

Maybe they just want to force groups/families of 3 or 4 to get 2 rooms in instead of one.

I'd have to check the measurements, but I believe if you push 2 doubles together you get a king. Sometimes I've had the little crack between the mattresses to annoy me, more often I think they slap a king mattress on top. Gives the hotel more flexibility.

It's 2 twin beds that make a standard King, but not a CA king.

I'm peeved when a hotel lists its rooms as having two queens, when in reality they are double beds. And sadly, I see this all the time.

Mike

I think they expect to have two "non-couples" to share a double beds room.

They figured any couple would get a kingsize bed room.

Of course if they're "non-couples," they probably want the extra personal space of a queen bed even more.

And while 2 queens would obviously benefit families (and other multiple travellers) the most, there would be an advantage for couples as well. I know on several occasions my wife and I have checked into a hotel and all the king-bedded rooms were taken, and we've been stuck with 2 doubles. For practicality purposes, I usually sleep by myself in such circumstances.
So a hotel that installed queens instead of doubles would gain the flexibility to deal with those oversold king-room situations as well.

Hotels in Japan don't even have 2 doubles, but something much smaller. I've been in several hotels in the US that have 2 queens, Omni Hotels often do. You have to check the WEB site when making your choice.

Hm.. you probably never tried to rent in UK... most of "standard" 2br homes will not be able to accommodate king size bed in master bedroom

Answering your question... I have yet to see one king bed in the "quality" hotel chain which will be wider than 2 double beds, so it looks equitable... you can get one king or 2 doubles.

Again, remembering UK - you also can get 2 singles and THAT is something I don't recommend to anyone.
AX

Yup, I'm not trying to explain (or change) the strange bedding practices abroad (although I've gotten large beds in the UK -- must have been lucky). Just talking about the good ol' USA, where we're used to large cars, large meals, large houses and large beds. In such a culture, the reliance on small beds in our hotels seems like an anachronism.

My ideal hotel has queens at reception (no offence, anyone) and kings for sleeping on. So much so that at home we've moved up a size to a king.

Maybe the cost of bedding (known here as Manchester!) determines the choice for more economical hotels, but the trend seems to be king wherever there is space.
Cheers ^.

As another poster mentioned, frequently the room just simply isn't large enough for two queens, as opposed to the double-double that they have. That's a shortcoming of the property, where available physical space dictates the room sizes and resulting furniture. When the hotel was built, they could have either created larger rooms (read: fewer rooms in that hotel), or made them suitably smaller to have larger overall capacity.

Quite simply, many of these hotels are convention/meeting hotels, where room shares are quite common. (Cheapskate) Companies often request double-doubles so convention attendees or company employees can bunk two (unrelated) people in the same space as a single taking a room with a King or Queen. Convention planners are looking to maximize their room blocks and this is one way. You don't want to get into "attrition" as a meeting planner, but that's a whole other topic.

People also travel with kids, so these double-doubles are frequently connecting rooms with an adjacent King.

There are lots of reasons hotels do this, mostly because they know their target customers better than the OP thinks they do. If you want a bigger bed in a certain hotel, either request it, or frequent the chain often enough to increase your elite level (better chance for upgrades).

I have no problem with hotels having double beds. My problem is they call them "queen rooms" & when questioned if the beds are truly queens the reply is always a "yes", although in the end we find them not to be.