Whether you are sun-tanning in the Maldives or spending spring at a ski vacation in Aspen, hotels are an integral part of every vacation, and you might love it or you might hate it. But eventually, you have to warm up to it, especially if your job requires a lot of travelling. So, isn’t it convenient if you knew how to make the most of hotel stays? We bet you’ve often wondered about the over-priced rooms and the insanely expensive mini-bar items.
There are certain hacks you can practice to use your hotel stay to proper advantage, and these tricks can also help you save a lot of money. Now, we are not proposing anything unethical here -nothing like what Ross and Chandler did in Friends. We are not advising you to hoard on supplies or misbehave, but you need to follow these instructions whenever you stay at a hotel next.
The cruelest hotel rule is perhaps the Internet fees. Hotels charge an unfair amount just so you can use their Wi-fi, and paying money for Internet has always been a talking point among people, especially those who are travelling for work. It doesn’t make sense to spend so much money just so you can work from the comfort of your room which you’re paying for. What you can do is before you start on your trip, check with your Internet provider if you can use a hotspot service from your phone. This way you will not need to use your hotel Wi-fi.
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We just don’t pay enough attention to germs and general hygiene when we’re staying at a hotel. When you pay hundreds of dollars for a hotel room, you just assume that the room is spick and span. But that is hardly ever the case. For instance, if your toothbrushes touch the walls or the granite of the bathroom shelf, it can’t be very healthy. Use clips to keep the toothbrushes upright, so that they don’t touch the wall.
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When you need to do laundry on vacation, don’t go for your hotel’s laundromat services. If you need clean clothes use a plastic bag and a couple of coins. Put the bag over the drain of your bathroom and you can then weigh it down with the coins to clog it. You can use it as a washing station.
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Usage of phones and cameras are a constant on vacations. You have to take photos, sort photos, set-up videos and perhaps share photos etc. It’s very inconvenient running around looking for charging points, so here’s where you can charge your phone. Look behind the TV in your room, and you’re bound to find an USB port there, which you can use to charge your equipments.
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Most hotels provide laundry bags, but most people do not avail the laundromat services in the hotel. Mainly because if people are staying over for less than a week, they usually pack enough fresh clothes so they don’t have to recycle. So, you don’t really need the laundry bags. But these bags make for a perfect prop to keep up your baby’s hygiene. Use the laundry bags to store the dirty diapers and dry waste which you can dispose of later.
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If you have a Netflix account, you don’t really need to watch basic television while you’re travelling. If your hotel room has a TV with an HDMI port, and you can access a hotspot or Wi-Fi, connect Netflix to your TV directly from your laptop or your phone. But of course you don’t need all the trouble if your room already has an Apple TV.
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When travelling to humid climates, sweat and odor are huge problems. Your clothes often end up smelling weird as they are packed up in the confined space of your suitcase. Here’s what you can do. Pack a small box of fabric softener in your luggage. It will keep the clothes smelling fresh and you don’t have to worry about odour.
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Hotel teas are definitely overpriced, especially since they are stapled beverages, and that’s the first thing people look for when they wake up. But most hotel rooms have electric kettles, and you can carry your own tea bags. In which case you can just boil some water and make your own tea on your room, without paying anything at all.
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Hotel stays are often trickier if you can’t get enough sleep. Sometime lights from the adjoining corridor seeps into your room, and you can’t really ask them to shut it off as it’s a shared corridor. Noises also travel to our rooms, if people are walking and talking around or are being loud in their room. The best way to block external disturbances is by putting a towel at the door, to shut off the opening.
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This one’s a tricky one, but it saves you a lot of time and discomfort. Always ask for two key cards when you’re checking in. Some hotels have issues with giving out more than one key card to each guest. But if they do give out two key cards, use one to lock the door when you go out. And use the other to keep the power on, to keep your phones charging, keep the AC running, so you don’t have to come back to a humid room.
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This one will come in handy if you’re travelling with kids. Having dinners in the room is often a problem especially since there are not enough tables. Most rooms will provide you with an ironing board. Grab the board and just put on a clean sheet on it, and you’ve got an extra table.
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Ask for extra shower caps, as they are readily given out. And you can wrap your shoes and sneakers in them before packing them up in your luggage. Shower caps can also be very useful for keeping your expensive jewelleries and trinkets in one place.
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Portable mini shelves are a traveller’s best friend. Especially since you need to take out all your clothes out of your suitcase, so they don’t get all cramped up and pungent. You can use the shelves to keep the clothes folded.
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You probably know that sugar is an excellent exfoliator, and you also probably know where we are going with this. It’s a lot of work travelling with all your skincare products. You can actually ditch your scrub at home and just make use of those extra sugar packets which are given out. Mix the sugar in your cleanser, and you have got a perfectly good scrub.
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You probably know this already, but cash always helps. A nice hotel will have some very nice complimentary provisions. Just slip some cash into the manager’s hands, and you might just get an upgrade.
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