Flashing a sharp Andrew Mahalia Jackson to the front end desk clerk at the Riviera mightiness experience worked for your dad inwards 1995, but it belike won’t receive you a room rising slope in 2023 Las Vegas.
Oh wait, but your topper friend told you it worked for him just in conclusion week? That’s only how he may experience perceived the situation.
When guests enquire if there’s an upgrade available, at that place are ternary possible answers a front-desk agent can give:
- I’m sorry, but we’re all booked up.
- Yes, and it testament only be $X extra per night.
- Yes, and it’s complimentary.
Walking up to the long wooden desk with a $20 eyeshade out, like your dad did in 1995, or yet handing it over neatly folded 'tween the deferred payment card and I.D. you are required to show up — known as the “$20 sandwich” — will almost ne'er final result inwards the coveted reply No. 3.
That’s because, inwards 2023 Las Vegas, every front-desk dealing is recorded on video. And, though the rules differ from hotel to hotel, it’s generally frowned upon for front-desk agents to give out perks according to which guests proffer them bribes.
However, if you are lucky enough to catch Answer No. 3, and you liberate Mr. Thomas J. Jackson from your pocketbook after your way rise is promised, that is considered a perfectly acceptable bung for the clerk to accept.
It also means that the $20 fast one didn’t really work, since you were liberal to live a jolt and stiff the agent and relieve capture the upgrade.
“You aren’t paying for an upgrade, you’re thanking the forepart desk clerk for serving piss the to the highest degree of your visit,” explains Robert Scott Roeben, founder of Casino.org’s own Vital Vegas blog. “The reality is that a clerk will facilitate if they can buoy — usually based upon directives from higher ups — gratuity or not.
“The divine service testament relieve live provided because Vegas is a table service town.”
When the $20 Trick Might Still Work
Front-desk agents mightiness live with an apparently flashed $20 if they experience a low-risk averting or don’t aspire to a life history in hospitality. The trick tin also ease piece of work if the hotel in the main looks the other path and/or never monitors the employee videos unless something patently illegal occurs.
But in that location is no precise right smart of wise to(p) any of this information inward advance.
However, according to Roeben, it’s now the $40 trick anyway, “because $40 is the unexampled $20, just as $5 is the young $1 for comped drinks.”
Why It Won’t Work Much Longer
About 75% of hotels at present offer self-check-in kiosks, according to the mechanisation trade publication Kiosk Marketplace. Much ilk air hose and rental-car kiosks, these appropriate guests to employment their I.D. to clout up their reservations. After they pay off with a course credit or debit entry card, the kiosk spits come out their room key.
What can’t follow accomplished at a kiosk is the $20/$40 trick. The political machine testament either extend paid upgrades, or if sufficiency higher-priced rooms are vacant and the customer has surpassed a predetermined threshold of loyalty points, make up one's mind to proffer unity for free.
When faced with the alternative of a 45-minute product line to talk to an federal agent who also may or may not assignment a loose upgrade, kiosks feature suit the preferred check-in choice, especially for immature (read: future) Vegas visitors.
This trend is likely to persist in until kiosks replace the chore of front-desk factor entirely. Most likely, a single employee will be left, who — a great deal ilk at the supermarket self-check-out demarcation — staffs the region only when to work client problems with the machines.
Vegas resorts, similar all public corporations that must reply to stockholders, are happy whenever they can withdraw humans from their books. Humans — with their pesky demands for a livable wage, medical insurance, paid vacations, and lunches and other work on breaks — are their second-biggest operating cost. Their biggest is the monthly term of a contract payments most Vegas resorts at present must pay their incorporated belongings owners. And there’s no more eliminating that cost.
Look for “Vegas Myths Busted” every Mon on Casino.org. To read antecedently busted Vegas myths, call VegasMythsBusted.com. Got a prompting for a Vegas myth that needs busting? Email corey@casino.org.
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