Hi, I'm on my iPhone which does not (yet) support Flash. Could someone please type out the three questions? Thank you.

@easy2panic: 1) how close is my room to the construction, 2) can i have a room under the 8th floor, 3) which floors have booster pumps?

i stay in a lot of hotels, and will never ask any of those questions. this "travel guru" looks to be more of a "travel scammer" to me.

-> is my room under the 8th floor? (this is in case of fire, as fire departments supposedly can't fight fires above the 8th floor)

-> how close is my room to the construction? (since apparently most hotels have some sort of construction going on)

-> is there a booster pump on my floor? (if there's a water pressure booster pump on your floor, you'll have better water pressure in your shower)

Sounds like good advice, but seeing as how I usually look to spend less than $100 on a room I doubt I'll ever have the opportunity to use it.

Bad advice.

Just stay in a no-tell-motel

I wouldn't bother front desk people with that kind of questioning. I would rather save that good will for something more important.

The best trip planning advice I have found is off of trip advisor. People post about the typical pitfalls of a specific hotels, where parking is cheaper, where to eat or not to eat etc. They usually post the hidden fees too.

The other useful ones are the sites that show you what hotels are what in places like Priceline & Hotwire and what people historically got rooms for.

dlynch: Peter Greenburg is the Today Show's travel editor. The guy knows his stuff.

I take it if they don't have any rooms below the 8th floor you should ask for a discount up front because in case there is a fire you will apparently be too dead to collect it.

I am always friendly to the front desk and on check-in I always ask if my room is "good" or if they can pick a "good" room for me.

If it's a non-cookie cutter hotel, it works out most of the time.

I don't care about the 8th floor thing. I work on the 35th floor, so if I was concerned about dying in a fire I would never make it to work.

He looks a little smarmy, kinda like he could use one of those booster pump showers.

The "booster pump" is BS. I've worked the engineering department of hotels most of my adult life. The hotels with 15 or fewer floors have a pumping system in the basement and pressure regulator valves on all floors to ensure even pressure. There will still be less pressure on the upper floors regardless, but there won't be that much variation between the upper floors and the lower ones.

Hotels with more than 15 floors either use a water tank on the roof with gravity feed, or they use pumps in the basement with booster pumps on the upper floors, but still with pressure regulators on each floor.

Most plumbing devices such as shower valves and faucets won't last long if the pressure is greater than 60 psi. They operate best at around 40 psi. The pump pressure at the main pumping system is upwards of 125 psi.

Three questions I've never asked when I've booked a room, and I've never had a problem (with those items).

Wow! I usually leave my stinky elephant at home, fearing that the hotel shower water pressure would not be enough to clean him. Now I can drag his pachyderm stench with me on vacation, and have no worries! Thanks, Peter Greenburg and Consumerist! ;)

He seems concerned enough about fire safety to ask for a room below the 8th floor, but he doesn't ask what the fire alarm sounds like. When a noise wakes you up at 3am, how long will it take you to figure out what it is when you don't know what the fire alarm sounds like? Is it a constant buzzer, a constant bell, a repeating buzzer or something else? If you know what the fire alarm sounds like, you'll react more quickly and get out faster.

I agree with missdona's tactics. Then if I get upstairs and find that my "good" room is wanting in a major way, such as construction proximity, etc., I immediately go back down to the front desk (I NEVER call!) and talk to the person who checked me in.

I am almost always able to get a very nice upgraded room when the first one isn't satisfactory, but I am careful not to overuse this "ability." It helps that I am a small, non-threateningly attractive woman and that I dress well but modestly.

@easy2panic: Agreed.

I was just thinking the other day about how good Consumerist had gotten about writing out transcripts or overviews of posted videos for those of us who can't watch them for some reason (the computers at my school don't have flash, and you can't install it). Please keep it up, Consumerist, otherwise it makes posts like this irritating for those who are left out.

Very funny.

"Can you call the engineer, and ask where the booster pumps are?"

Any front desk in America would tell you to screw yourself in a polite manner upon hearing that question.

Ask if:

There are any discounts - government, club, etc.

There are any corner rooms available - stat wise the problems happen in the middle, and logically you have one less common wall.

They can tell you what is the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) - if you are on the edge of a city or county with a neighboring municipality that has a lower TOT, the hotel will often cuts it profit to match the TOT induced prices.

There are any rooms that have not recently been repainted - rooms get repainted for all the wrong reasons such as suicides, murders, and vomiting...

Er, the bell hop that takes the bags up to your room with you will ask you if the room is OK. Look around, out the window, etc, while he waits there for the tip. If not, give him $20 and ask him if he can get the front desk to move you, which he'll do. You'll get a better room. When he comes back, and if it's an upgrade, give him another $20. In any decent hotel for the week this will be a small percentage of your overall bill anyway.

Ask if:

There are any rooms near the caretaker's suite - hotels often fill that one only when there is 100% capacity, so they are generally the nicest and least used. (Applies mainly to small hotels which have an overnight caretaker.)

i figured he'd say to ask questions like what are the hidden fees. also he said that you'll only be in your room to sleep and shower so what does it matter if you're by construction. they won't be blasting or whatever at night. i guess you might be woken up at 8am but you can take that as a wakeup call and go enjoy your vacation.

I've never had a bell hop ask if the room is ok. Save the 40 bucks, man up, and ask for another room if you need to.

Greenberg is a total moron... He promotes himself as some type of travel expert, but every time I see or hear him it's always some nonsense, obious crap we've all known about for years. "For an inexpensive vacation, consider Colorado in the summer, or Disney World in August." Oh, REALLY?!?!??!!? It's cheaper in the off season? Let me get my notebook out...

I work at a hotel and have no idea what "booster pumps" are and I just polled our Front Desk agents and they don't either.
Making an agent call engineering to ask that question will make the agent hate you so don't expect anyone to be on your side if something goes wrong with your bill!

@wav3form: True, but being good to the staff, tip wise, will almost always get you preferential treatment and benefits. It's all about the money.

Booster pumps? Booster pumps?!

I smile and talk to the staff (at hotels or coffee shops or in parking garages, to name a few examples) like they're humans, not servants, and, in a hotel, if I come back down with a problem, I find that the person I've chatted with is usually very helpful.

Ask for a room on the same floor as the booster pumps

I would wager $50 with anyone that this will elicit only a braindead "whaaat? booster what? booster seats?" from the clerk.

@hanbush:

ya, and the twin towers were designed to take the impact of two jumbo jets, so i'll take the 8th or below please.

@DeltaPurser: A lot of fluff material gets put into "travel expert" features...for the real story, a good travel guide is the only thing I trust.

As DeltaPurser says above, Greenberg is an incompetent know-nothing. His "travel tips" are useless information--any barely competent traveler has already figured these things out for him or herself long before figuring it out from this unreconstructed idiot.

Newbie travelers, do not ask the front desk a stupid a request as "Place me on the same floor as the booster pumps." You're more than likely going to be placed in a room next to the vending machine or the laundry. And fat f*cking chance that you'll get the engineer (or one of his staff) to answer that for you.

And a room away from construction? Please. In my thirty-three years of work-related travel, I've been to Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota, Buffalo, Toronto, Winslow, Sarasota... You get the picture. I've been everywhere, stayed at every chain, and hundreds of mom-n-pop and boutique hotels.

Construction can be a pisser. So can street noise. So can the f*cking train. So can les misérables hotel guests. You're not going to win for trying on this. Just do your best to live with the best you can negotiate. And if they f*ck you over, don't ever stay there again.

I remember every bad hotel I ever stayed at (and there have been dozens). But if I took the advice of this wanker, I would have had to remember dozens more.

Um, I'm pretty sure that hotels have other safety features going on to deal with the lack of hoses on upper floors. Like maybe...more hoses. All the reports of the Monte Carlo fire in Vegas earlier this year said that they were aiming hoses out of windows to get the exterior of the building where the fire was.

I'm almost positive that you wouldn't be allowed to actually have a hotel that wouldn't have proper precautions in case of fire. I'm pretty sure that'd be illegal.

@ptkdude: All the hotels I've stayed in recently actually had voice instructions with the fire alarm. Once it started to go off, you could actually hear and distinguish the words "This is the fire alarm, please evacuate the building" or some such.

@ptkdude:
Most of them have voice and some even have 2 way voice ie they can talk to you and you can talk back to to them

First:
"Ask for a room below the 8th floor"
Then:
"Ask for a room on a floor with booster pumps"

I'll wager that if you do find someone who even knows what a booster pump is and can find out where it is located, it will be ABOVE the 8th floor.

@Meiran:

All the hotels you've stayed at recently had the fire alarm go off? That's unfortunate.

I've read his "The Travel Detective" book and found the advice decidedly mixed. Personally, high on my list is whether the room is very close to the elevator or the ice machine.

The 8th room bit seems a little Chicken-Littleish.

@DrGirlfriend: Easy for you to say. I mean, what's going to put out a fire if you're too high up for the fire engines to reach? A sprinkler system? Preposterous!

@easy2panic: ugh i hear ya on the iphone thing. they figured out how to hook up stuff like quicktime and pdfs, i don't know why they can't use something so common like flash.

ask them about ripoff "RESORT FEES".

As them also when you check in if your room has a "connecting door" to the room next to yours. We stayed at one last year that we did not know had a "connecting door" and I was awakened at about 1 am by the loud sounds of the couple in the room next door being 'affectionate". A connecting door does not leave much between your room and theirs. Nor to the imagination.

@firefoxx66:
I think you should send an EECB to the administrators at your school, requesting that Flash be installed on all the computers.

SkyeBlue: Yeah, good point. I've run into that problem a once or twice, too.

I dont think I'd ever ask these questions. Seem kinda dumb, like an amateur blog writer responding to the latest tv commercials for a hotel rating site that over dramatizes the pitfalls. Seriously, who books a room afraid it will catch on fire!? If you think the hotel is about to go up in flames, you shouldn't rent a room there at all. Here are 3 USEFUL questions: "Have you fixed the cockroach problem? Are the sheets clean? Do you have internet access?

@MyCokesBiggerThanYours: Yup, I was about to say something similar.

@DeltaPurser: Walt Disney World in August?!?! It's hot, hurricane season, and with the kids still out of school, busy as hell. If you want to go to Walt Disney World, go in late October/early November, early December or mid to late January. Weather is decent and the crowds are the lowest of the year.

Back on topic, I wouldn't bother asking these questions. If you end up with a crappy room, just ask for another one or suck it up.

I tend to ask where the water pressure's good, where i can be far from an elevator, no connecting door, and i don't really care about the view as long as i'm not by the ice machine. I tend to only ask this if i'm going to be there more than one night, in which case i only ask about the connecting door. i can live with the other stuff. always ask as sweetly as possible and sympathize with their plight that people ask for "so much stuff." partially because they DO and partially because few people seem to show hotel employees any human kindness.

Then i slip the person a 20 if i'm gonna be there more than one night.

I don't really want to go into detail how well this works, but suffice it to say that Mr. Jackson opens doors very well. I have one hotel in SLC where i am treated like a rock star because i fixed their wifi at 1am (not even our branded wifi!), one hotel in Vegas where i seem to get every comp coupon they can throw at me ("Hey, $10 of blackjack credit?"), and one in Sacramento where i seem to always get the same lovely suite.

I have no idea why. I know i'm charming and cute (but by no means magnetic or beautiful), my fair telecom company pays a ridonkulously low daily rate for a basic room, and i'm only Starwood Preferred Guest gold, just like seemingly everyone else. Ah well, mustn't grumble...

I work at the front desk of a fancy hotel. I have no idea where the booster pumps are. Best bet? Be specific about what you want in your room. Say you want a quiet room, away from the elevators with a specific view if that is what is going to make you happy. We aren't mind readers, let us help you!My life is considerably easier if you actually enjoy your stay.

oh yeah, and one more thing: if they don't know where the ice machine is or where the water pressure's good or the like, don't act up. give your room a chance, as 9 times out of 10 the hunch of the front desk clerk is right with or without the knowledge of where the booster pumps are. btw, some hotels don't have booster pumps and do just fine.