How to find the best – and avoid the worst – hotel room

There’s no quick answer to the question, “How do I find the best hotel room?” That’s because no two hotel rooms are exactly alike. They defy easy Seat-Guru-ization, which is to say you can’t create a reliable online directory of room sizes and amenities.

But you can become your own Seat-Guru for hotels. And with the fall travel season just ahead, that answer might just help you have a better night’s sleep.

“Choosing the best hotel and room can be a daunting task,” says Michael Heflin, a senior vice president at Travel Leaders Group’s hotels division. “But it doesn’t have to be.”

The trick is to start with the right hotel and then apply a few easy strategies to selecting the right room, or renegotiating your room assignment when your accommodations don’t meet your standards.

❚ Plan ahead for the best hotel room: Heflin says thinking ahead and being strategic about your accommodations will help you secure the best room. In fact, that’s a common thread among the experts I consulted.

Wait until you arrive at the front desk, and you might get a room you don’t like. Oh, and that rumor about booking through one of those discount sites and ending up in the broom closet next to the elevator? True, sometimes.

“Discount websites are loaded with the worst rooms in the hotel,” explains Laura Freeman, a travel advisor with The Trip Trotter, a New York travel agency affiliated with Tzell Travel Group. “Which is why they are so cheap.”

After careful research and consulting with a trusted travel adviser, choose a hotel that’s right for you.

“Call the hotel before arriving and ask to speak to the front desk,” says Cheri Young, an associate professor at the University of Denver’s school of hospitality management. “The front desk agents are the ones who choose a room for you when you check in, choosing from the available inventory.”

❚ How do you know if it’s the right room? Here’s why it’s so difficult – impossible, really – to create a universal SeatGuru for hotels. Every guest is different. Every room is different. A hotel room is not an airline seat.

“Much as there are no two identical hotel rooms, there are no two identical guests,” says Brendan Bauman, the reservations director at Bedderman Lodging, a company that manages several urban hotels in the Chicago area. “While one guest might enjoy a hotel’s room scenic street view, another hotel guest will be driven up the wall by the room’s incessant street noise.”

So how do you know if its the right room for you?

Read the description carefully, consult with a trusted travel adviser (I know, I’m starting to repeat myself, but this is really important) and then call the hotel to ask specific questions such as “Can you hear the elevator from that room?” or “When does the club under my room close?”

❚ What if they don’t give you the best room? So let’s say you end up in the worst room in a hotel. Is there a way to fix it? As a matter of fact, yes.

“If you get to your room and find it’s not ideal, first, don’t touch anything,” says frequent hotel guest Kenny Colvin, who runs Giant Squid Creative, a branding, design and consulting agency in the hospitality sector. “Don’t unpack, don’t go to the bathroom, nothing – otherwise you make that room unsellable that night.”

Go to the front desk and ask if they have anything else available. Ask nicely and smile. The worst that can happen is that they say “no.”

Another way to persuade the frontdesk employee to switch your rooms: Plunk down your loyalty card.

“Loyalty goes a long way,” says Arik Kislin, co-owner of the Gansevoort Hotel in New York.

Even more tips for a better room

❚ Note the age of the hotel: The older the hotel, “the less comfortable and older the beds will be,” says Daniella Flores, a personal finance blogger for the site Iliketodabble.com.

❚ Don’t forget about safety: The safest rooms are on the side of the hotel farthest from the front entrance, located above ground level but not on the top floor (nothing higher than the sixth floor), without a balcony and not overlooked by another room.

Christopher Elliott is a consumer advocate. Contact him at chris@elliott.org or visit elliott.org.

Hotel experts say the best way to get the best room in the house is to call the front desk directly and ask a lot of questions. THE ROYAL HAWAIIAN