Hotel Front Desk Agent

Hotel Front Desk Agent

Hotel Front Desk

Los Angeles, CA

Male, 27

For the past two years I've worked the front desk at a boutique luxury beachfront hotel in Southern California. My job can range from simply checking guests in & out to many other duties, including: pretending I work in different departments so that behind-the-scenes chaos is never seen by a guest, shielding guests from stalkers that come looking for them, and picking up used drug paraphernalia from a trashed room. Ask me anything.

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Last Answer on November 24, 2013

Best Rated

What shows up on the room service bill when “my friend” buys in-room adult movies? Have you ever had to explain to a woman that the movie charges on her bill was porn that her husband bought?

Asked by alalal over 12 years ago

Thankfully never! The way that most hotels differentiate the adult in-room movies from the family-friendly fare is by price. So if you see one movie on a guest bill or "folio" for $12.95 and a second movie for $13.95, that second movie was likely porn. It's common for a businessman checking out to say, "Can I pay for the movie with my own card instead of the corporate card?" 99% of the time that movie is one of the adult ones, but I get what he means without having to ask why. If his company is paying for the porn, then that's a company with a wide range of benefits!

Is it true that hotels rarely wash the duvet covers on the beds?

Asked by Smitty over 12 years ago

At my property thankfully we have duvets that are completely washable and that means we DO wash them. That being said, at cheaper hotels and especially motels, ownership or management are going to cut corners, including not washing the duvet covers. In most cases, it's in the best interest of a hotel-owner to do so but one place that gets almost ZERO attention are the couches and chairs! Those in most cases don't need cleaning unless something is visibly wrong, so you can imagine how much unseen filth is on those! Not a place to do anything naked...

Hotel desk folks are, more often than not, super polite, impeccably dressed, and very well-spoken. Is that stuff part of the training? Or are those kinds of people the ones drawn to these kinds of jobs?

Asked by Shana over 12 years ago

The simple answer is, most of those who succeed in hospitality careers do fit your description, and naturally gravitate to these jobs. If the hiring manager at the hotel wants to keep up at all with the increasingly competitive market, the demand for the best service, and wants to differentiate their brand and property from another, then I would give the credit first to the person who is actually as you described above, because it can take a lot of resolve, cunning, and resourcefulness to remain that way given what a front of house job requires daily. Second, I would give credit to the brand itself (Hyatt comes to mind, as does some other... Read More +

Will slipping the check-in clerk $20 get you upgraded? There’s a whole website dedicated to it -- http://thetwentydollartrick.com/ but it’s never worked for me.

Asked by kevin.emerson over 12 years ago

According to the site: "Hotel Managers have given no official answer to this question. They have provided front desk clerks the ability to upgrade rooms at their discretion and as long as that continues the Twenty Dollar Trick will continue to work. We have heard that the Flamingo has forced banned all the front desk clerks from upgrading patrons to the Go room." -http://thetwentydollartrick.com/ Where I work, management would frown on this, and all upgrades fall into the same process as to how to give them to a guest. Like most perks, the closer to sold out the hotel is, the harder... Read More +

Do people treat you as a subordinate because they're paying a lot of money to stay in a hotel and you're a staff member just checking them in? Does it bother you?

Asked by ericmaynard1 over 12 years ago

People definitely do carry an air of entitlement with them if they have accomplished a certain feat in life. But I have seen both extremes, and one fact holds true: the people who have REALLY made something of themselves, and are actually worthy of praise and great treatment, KNOW it, and don't have to speak it out loud. The guests who are barely there and are desperate, or worse, might have once been to a certain level and are now a has-been, are the worst people to deal with because they are bickering over every little detail, yet have very little to offer to their professional peers, much less society. These are the hardest guests... Read More +

Have you or any of your fellow employees ever slipped away to "make use of a vacant room?"

Asked by ding.ding. over 12 years ago

Using a vacant room for anything other than prepping it for the next guest could land someone in a lot of trouble, however if it is a slow time of year and there is a bank of rooms that haven't been occupied in a while, then some hotel managers are okay with their employees eating their lunch in such a room. That policy would vary and likely would not fly at a larger, more corporate and branded hotel. As far as using a vacant room for napping, drug use, or other unprofessional activity, it's just a path to trouble for anyone doing it. You will see some hotels have live-in managers, or a rotating shift of managers that stay the night, especially... Read More +

I too am a night audit. I guess my question is, is it okay to keep home life separate from work. I often feel 'out of the loop' and because of this I have been deemed unapproachable by coworkers and guests. Where is it safe to draw the line?

Asked by Crystal over 11 years ago

Hotels are usually populated by very social employees, because one has to be social to be good at interacting with guests, but don't feel bad if you like to leave when your shift is over and go back to your home life once your work day is done.  There are some employees for whom the hotel is their life, and that's fine, but don't worry if you are not always going out with co-workers after work or very involved in their personal chatter during down time.  Just make it clear to co-workers that you are very into your home life and they'll probably understand why you may not be as into what's happening in social circles within the employee ranks.