VegasRateRedditor

Mistakes are made constantly! We also audit constantly to catch them.

My worst mistake was setting a suite to $66/night for Friday and Saturday over EDC Weekend. The rate should have been $660. It wasn't caught until the next day. Because it went out to our OTA's, over 1,000 reservations came in for that suite - that hotel didn't even have 1,000 of that room type. When those guests checked in, they were most likely moved to a lower level room with inventory. However, we will try and accommodate.

It totaled over $120,000 in lost revenue.

Rates won't go out that low. We have some parameters in place to prevent that. For example, the hotel that I screwed up - the lowest possible rate at that hotel was $55 - so they system didn't catch a $66 rate. Anything below $55 wouldn't have gone out.

Very rarely will we know when we do.

Most celebrities stay under an alias or a managers name. Ariana Grande uses a different fake name EVERY TIME - which makes it a pain for our VIP Staff/Butlers.

Celebrities/Presidents/Politicians do not get special room rates - but they may get a room that isn't offered. For example, Jamie Foxx was put into a suite when they were 'sold out' to the public. The booking of these high status guests are usually handled by foreign affairs or an executive VIP agent.

Vegas is a very competitive industry - especially Revenue Management. Revenue Analysts jump all over the city though, so it's a very small group of people who know each other.

I was a hotel engineer before! I went to room calls and fixed things.

RM is about problem solving really, and I learned how to trouble shoot from engineering.

I also met a high level executive on Grindr and talked with him for months - which I believe may have helped me. I never met him until I started the job.

Front desk agents get the "$20 trick" all day long, every day. They know what's up.

The good front desk agents will take the money, put it on the desk between you and them and leave it there. If they can get you an upgrade, you leave the money, if they can't they will let you take it back.

We have a woman that books 5 or 6 high level suites at our most luxury property. She books them on the most expensive dates a few months out, then always cancels them the week before. We've never seen her come in and she has never stayed. It's like she was trying to have us hold $20K for her, then refund her. We've reported it, but not sure what's happened.