Checking In?
Going to a hotel can be an unsettling experience. No matter how much you pay, you can never quite know what you’re going to get. Disturbing stories about filthy hotel rooms and bed bugs abound—but are they really that common? Let’s break down some of the wildest urban myths about hotels.
Spread The Word
We all make our beds differently at home—but for many years, one strangely consistent feature of hotel rooms the world over, from 1-star all the way up to 5-star, was the ubiquitous bedspread. Unfortunately, this innocent-seeming bedlinen is the source of one of the most pernicious urban myths about hotels.
Myth: Hotel Bedspreads Are Never Washed Between Guests
There’s an ongoing rumor that bedspreads, heavy comforters, and glassware aren’t washed between hotel guests. However, the answer is complicated. It truly depends on your hotel. Many more modern hotels have forgone the old-school bedspread instead of a more-easily washable duvet cover.
Rule Of Thumb
This is one of the most divisive urban myths about hotels out there. Some hospitality professionals claim that it’s definitely not a problem, while others say that they never touch the top layer or bedding, or even throw cushions, after they initially remove them from the bed upon check-in. Ultimately, it up to you to gauge how clean they are—and what to do with them during your stay.
Aim For The Stars
Check out any booking site, from Expedia to Priceline, and you’ll notice that every hotel has a star rating on a scale of 1 to 5. You may think you know what to expect out of, say, a 3-star hotel—but you might be mistaken.
Myth: Hotel Star Ratings Are Based On A Standard
There’s no unified system for hotel star ratings, and they vary from country to country. They also vary with regards to what they require to achieve a certain star rating. Did you know that in order for a hotel to get 4 stars in the US, it has to have phones in the bathrooms? What kind of standard is that?
Rolling The Dice
Ultimately, the star ratings are somewhat meaningless—with caveats. You might enjoy a stay in a boutique 3-star far more than a chain 5-star. Some 1 and 2 star hotels are kept impeccably clean, and others are dumps. Make judgements based on reviews, not on star ratings.
Wake Up And Smell The Coffee
This one is an urban myth that also plagues the aviation industry—that you can’t trust the coffee in a hotel room. Or on a plane. But what are the caffeine addicts of the world to do? How am I supposed to get up and leave the room to get coffee, when I need coffee to get up and leave the room?
Myth: Other Guests Do Weird Things To The Coffee Machine
A recent “popular” TikTok account certainly hasn’t helped with this urban myth. On the channel, a man makes increasingly strange foods in hotel rooms, using whatever he has on hand—including the bathroom sink and the coffee machine. Luckily, he’s not the norm.
Edvard Nalbantjan, Shutterstock
Good To The Last Drop
Due the popularity of the aforementioned TikTok channel, some media outlets have contacted hotel employees to ask if it’s as much of a problem as this one guy makes it out to be. Luckily, they all had the same answer. They’ve never found evidence of a guest doing anything weird with the coffee machine beyond actually making coffee. Victory!
Happy Hour
Hotel minibars can tempt even the strongest among us. Less-experienced travelers may walk into a hotel room and live in fear of even touching that small bag of chips or bottle of water, lest they get charged $18—why is it always $18? But then again, the hotels you may least expect to provide freebies may provide unexpected extras.
Myth: Hotel Minibars Automatically Charge You For Moving Products
This one really depends on the hotel in question. Each hotel will have a different procedure for keeping track of what products from the minibar are used. Some, yes, will use sensors—meaning you can’t replace that Diet Coke with another can just before you check out. Ask at the front desk what kind of system they use.
Vereshchagin Dmitry, Shutterstock
An Ounce Of Prevention
The best way to ensure you don’t wind up with any unwanted charges on your bill upon checkout? Request that the minibar be emptied when you check in. This way, you don’t need to worry about temptation nor any bizarre, fridge-shaking accidents.
Upgrades
In TV shows and movies, you always see people claiming that it’s their anniversary or wedding night and walking away with a free upgrade. Can it really be so easy?
Myth: You Can Talk Your Way Into An Upgrade
Well, yes. In fact, you don’t even need to lie for it. While many hotels will prioritize guests who are part of their loyalty programs, your average front desk employee does have the ability to upgrade you—but you’ll have to sweet talk your way into it.
You Catch More Flies With Honey
Some key advice to remember? Just be nice. You’re way more likely to get an upgrade that way than you are by making threats or pulling a “Don’t you know who I am?” attitude.
Buyer Beware
One caveat? Be clear that what you’re looking for is a free upgrade. You could end up shooting the breeze with the clerk and thinking you’re on the same page, only to get hit with an upgrade charge upon checkout.
Cutting Corners
Standards for hotel cleaning have changed over the years. Where a daily cleaning and turndown were expected in the past, many people nowadays aren’t so comfortable having someone come in and clean around all their stuff. But is that really the driving factor behind less frequent cleaning visits?
Myth: Rooms Aren’t Cleaning As Much Because People Don’t Want To Work
There could be many reasons why your hotel room isn’t cleaned during your stay. For example, during the pandemic, it was thought to be safer to have fewer people enter the room. And it’s not because the maids don’t want to do it. After all, at the end of your stay, there’d be even more work.
Going Green
Many hotels have made a commitment to lessen the environment damage that occurs during frequent cleans—think of the thousands of gallons of water that are needed to wash hundreds of rooms’ worth of sheets and towels every day. This is the #1 reason why many hotels don’t offer cleaning in the same way they used to.
Book Smarts
Google has made it incredibly easy to look up a hotel and compare prices with the click of a button. It often seems that sites like Booking.com and Expedia have the cheapest prices—but is that really true?
Myth: Booking Through A Third-Party Site Is Cheapest
Though they’ll certainly present you with deals, there are always ways around using a third-party website. Hotels have to pay a commission when you use one of these sites, so it’s in their best interest to book with you directly.
Cut Out The Middle Man
If you like the price you see on a third-party site but it’s not reflected on the hotel’s website, try giving them a call and explaining your situation. Unless there happens to be a reason for a hotel being fully booked, like a convention, they will try and help you out.
Playing Favorites
You may know someone—or you may be someone—with a “favorite” hotel chain. However, it only takes one “surprising” experience to learn that not all hotels within the same chain are the same. In fact, it can wildly vary.
Myth: Every Hotel Within A Chain Is The Same
Many chains, like Marriott, Hilton, and Hyatt, operate on a franchising model. This means that while some are owned and operated by the chain itself, others are owned and operated by a franchisee—and this is where trouble can begin.
Variety Is The Spice Of Life
Though each brand may set a standard for hotels that carry their name to live up to, not all fulfill the criteria. One chain with wild differences in standards is Howard Johnson—while I’ve stayed in a HoJo that could’ve easily qualified as 3 stars, there’s one a few miles from me that probably wouldn’t even rate 1 star.
Buyer Beware
When choosing a chain hotel, it’s once again important to do your research and read reviews. It can be extra useful to look for reviews with images to get a better idea of what you’re getting into.
Sleep Tight, Don’t Let The Bedbugs Bite
It’s one of those things that unfortunately make sense when you think about it—that hotel rooms could be particularly susceptible to bed bugs, causing guests to pick them up and bring them home.
Myth: Bedbugs Love Hotel Rooms
According to hospitality professionals, bed bugs aren’t nearly the problem that you think they might be, especially if you’re not in a big city. They don’t need to be a concern for the average traveler—but of course, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist in hotels.
The Numbers Don’t Lie
Of course, there’s always a chance that any given bed might have bedbugs. It’s just that hotels aren’t the statistical anomaly for bed bugs that people think they are. Your chances are about the same as they are in a similar place—for example, apartment buildings or hospitals.
If it’s something that causes you anxiety, learn how to thoroughly check for them—but don’t think that it’s a given that all hotel rooms have bedbugs.
Rock And Roll
It’s a classic trope—rock stars trashing their hotel rooms. While there’s no shortage of wild stories about rock stars on tour getting up to no good in hotel rooms, is this stereotype actually based in reality?
Myth: Rock Stars Trash Their Hotel Rooms
During their heyday, The Who—and particularly their drummer, Keith Moon—were notorious for trashing the hotels rooms that they stayed in on tour. He once even drove his car into a hotel pool while the police were pursuing him.
Jean-Luc, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
The Times They Are A-Changing
According to hospitality professionals, musicians nowadays are a lot less interested in partying and a lot more interested in clean living. It’s really not the same problem that it once was—so if you happen to notice a guitar-toting long-haired rocker on your floor, there’s no need to worry.
Safety First
This one is a bit weirder, and seems to spread in the more paranoid corners of the internet. There are rumors that not only do hotel key cards contain your personal information, but that there are people out there walking around who have devices that can secretly scan them.
Myth: Hotel Key Cards Contain Personal Information
This one actually comes from a misreported account by the Pasadena Police Department, of all places. It spread fairly quickly, and apparently this is one that hotel desk clerks are asked about all the time. Some people believe their name, home address, and credit card number are stored on those little key cards.
It’s Nothing Personal
In reality, none of that information is stored on your key card. What it does have? Your room number, check-in date, and check-out date. That’s it. If you’re at a hotel where you can charge things to your room, it may have your initials or a few letters of your name, to check against your signature.
What’s That Smell?
This one is a classic, equally represented in TV and movies as it is covered by urban legend books and websites. Everyone’s either seen something about it or heard something about it—the story about a friend of a friend of a friend who noticed a weird smell in their hotel room and complained about it, only to find out that it was coming from a body stuffed in the mattress.
Myth: The Bad Smell Could Be A Body In The Mattress
In one segment of the 2004 comedy anthology film Four Rooms, two children left alone by their parents on New Years Eve wreak havoc on their hotel room—and their bellhop/babysitter Ted. It all culminates when they find a body in the mattress, to their great horror…and to comic effect for the audience. Unfortunately, this wasn’t just a creative writing choice.
The Truth Hurts
Snopes.com, the urban myth experts, investigated this one and came up with a slew of cases where people discovered bodies in their hotel room mattresses—and the original article was published in 1999, so who knows how many others there have been since them. While it’s obviously not that common, it is unfortunately, true.
Money For Nothing
You may not get a TV or a hair dryer, but once upon a time, there was one constant in hotel rooms all over the USA: the Gideon bible. Often tucked into the bedside table drawer, this faithful companion came with a strange urban myth attached to it.
Chad Robertson Media, Shutterstock
Myth: There Could Be Money Hidden In Your Hotel Bible
Admittedly, this one was new to me—but there appears to be a fairly common rumor that hotel bibles often have a $100 bill tucked inside, meant to reward the faithful.
Bible-Thumping
Unfortunately, this one seems to be completely false—and to simultaneously act as a ploy to get people to pick up their bibles. I don’t think it’s actually that easy to convert people, but nice try.
ZikG, Shutterstock
