Midweek Triple

  • If you haven’t signed up for Clear yet, you can get a 3-month trial membership for free.
  • Take a quick survey for 500 free Voila points and a chance to win 250,000.
  • Save 20% on Uber rides to/from locations throughout the country for the rest of black history month.

 

Auctions

Thanks to Chicago reader Craig who spotted a few Hilton auctions ending in the morning at a reasonable (for now) price. Probably a good time for my periodic reminder to check Hilton, Starwood, Delta, and/or Wyndham auctions every week or so. Especially if you’re rich with any of those currencies. Good stuff pops up occasionally and I only post these reminders once or twice per year.

Recent Customer Service Favorites

As much fun as it is to shine a light on douchebaggery…sometimes good people come along and deserve attention too. I’ve been lucky enough to have a few exceptional customer service experiences lately that I wanted to share…

  1. At the Grand Hyatt Kauai over the holidays, I noticed I was waking up feeling good in the morning. At first, I just assumed it had to do with the fact that I was…you know…in Hawaii. But it was more than that. Even in paradise, I typically start each day with a certain level of annoying neck discomfort. Not at this Hyatt. A few days after I got home, it hit me. Their hotel pillows were really helping. For whatever reason, it was the perfect amount of mushiness for my neck. And I’d been searching for the perfect mushy pillow for years. So I wrote to the hotel hoping I’d be able to buy one. The person I spoke to (Diann) had already been very helpful during my stay, but she went above and beyond this time. She waited for their next delivery date and then sent me two pillows at no cost. Didn’t even ask me to pay for shipping. She even included a very nice card. Wow.
  2. I’m very much a t-shirt and jeans type of guy. Spending a fortune on clothes is SO not me. But I do own a handful of nice things to wear. At the top of that list is a great pair of shoes from Bed Stu (that mostly just sits in my closet). Unfortunately, the left one broke recently. In my opinion, it was a premature death. I reached out to customer service and, after a couple of conversations, they generously took care of me. Now I have a new pair of boots sitting in my closet. Thanks to some of the greatest customer service I’ve ever experienced.
  3. Months ago, I went to Las Vegas to place a bet on Floyd Mayweather (who was fighting non-boxer Conor McGregor in a boxing match). At one point, I ended up at a little dive bar called Wildfire right by the Sunset Station casino. It was pretty jarring how nice everyone was. I started joking around calling it Disneyland and “the friendliest place on earth.” In Vegas of all places? Crazy. I was back in town a couple of weeks ago and decided to pop in to see if the first time was a fluke. Not only was it just as friendly, but one of the guys actually remembered me and treated me like a regular. From 6 months ago. When I was in there for less than an hour. This is not normal in most cities. Let alone Las Vegas.

Whether good or bad, customer service REALLY makes a difference. At least for me. Because of exceptional customer service, I’m loyal to certain businesses…whether a hotel, a shoe company, or a dive bar.

Hotel Promos

Everyone and their mother should take the 3 seconds to register for this Hyatt promo worth bonus points. A much smaller number of people will probably take advantage of these 2 Marriott promos – 2,000 bonus points at some properties and 10,000 bonus points in Portland. Have a great weekend, nerds!

 

 

 

RoomiPay Feedback

A bunch of you have reached out about RoomiPay over the last few weeks. Seems simple enough…a new way to pay rent with credit cards. I’m not a fan of Plastiq, so this got my attention. The fee sounded pretty reasonable (2% for most people and zero for some) plus most readers were sharing very positive experiences. Good signs. But I did get a few negative comments along the way and wanted to pass those along too:

  1. “The website is clunky. Before submitting payments, they ask you to confirm details. But no details are shown.”
  2. “Confirmation emails provide no information about the payment – amount, mailing address, etc.”
  3. “Some rent payments were a day late this month. They mail handwritten checks but had a ‘technical issue’ causing a delay.”

I should add that 100% of the feedback about their customer service has been VERY positive. Even from the people who shared issues. For now, I’m giving RoomiPay the benefit of the doubt. It’s a new service and they’re clearly working out a couple of kinks. Not enough to worry me yet. I’ll get tougher with that opinion if they spaz out on anything over the next few months.