During business trips your hotel becomes your home away from home, and it can play a pretty big role in whether or not your business trip feels successful or not. If you have a bad night’s sleep or something malfunctions it’s can be much harder to concentrate on your actual work.  Some things, like an uncomfortable bed, don’t really have a work around, but luckily some common hotel complaints have a solution. Here are four common hotel pet peeves and what to do about them.

Noisy environment.   Hearing your neighbor through the wall, the icemaker in the hallway, water move through plumbing, footsteps above, or the highway outside your window are just some of the things that can make you crazy when trying to sleep.  Early on I tried ear plugs but could never get used to them. Plus on a few trips my alarm would go off for several minutes before I heard it, and I got so paranoid about oversleeping I would wake up constantly. Then I found a free White Noise app  and I’ve never looked back.  I drift off almost instantly when I’m using this app, and environmental noise rarely overpowers it.  Plus, since it’s on my phone the white noise pauses when my phone alarm goes off. I highly recommend you download it if you haven’t already.

Dirty room.  Every once in a while I’ll check into a room that wasn’t cleaned properly.  If this happens I have no issue calling the front desk to complain and ask for something in return.  Usually the least I’ll accept is a new room, but sometimes they’ll concede points, or on a good day I’ll get an upgrade. I could request immediate special maid service but you never know how long that will take (plus having to deal with the person you potentially were complaining about can be awkward).  One thing I’ll add: when requesting early check-in on more than one occasion I’ve had a completely uncleaned room. This is probably due to the lack of communication between the front desk and cleaning service. When this happens be sure you at least ask for a new room!

Paying for WiFi.  Some of the prices hotels charge for WiFi are completely ridiculous.   It’s often one of the biggest complaints I’ve heard from readers, especially since WiFi is generally free at the lower-middle tier hotels (like Springhill Suites) but you have to pay $10 or more per day at the upper-middle tier hotels from the same family (like Marriott). However, keep in mind that many hotels offer free WiFi for certain rewards members.  For instance, Hilton HHonors offers free WiFi to their Gold and Diamond members for most properties. (If you haven’t signed up for your hotel rewards program you need to do that before your next trip!)  Another way to avoid a WiFi charge is to use your phone or a mobile hotspot to connect, which is certainly convenient but use too much of your data plan.   

When stuff doesn’t work.  Ugh. Is there anything more frustrating than stuff just not working? Whether it’s the WiFi connection, TV, bathroom sink, or anything else, when we pay good money for a room we expect everything to work the way it’s supposed to. It’s annoying that this can even be an issue, but I have found that a quick call to the front desk results in maintenance coming up to fix the issue rather quickly for most items.

Readers, what are your biggest hotel pet peeves?

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