Hotel Secrets from the Travel Detective: Insider Tips on Getting the Best Value, Service, and Security in Accommodations from Bed-and-Breakfasts to Five-Star Resorts [Paperback]

Peter Greenberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 9, 2004 | Series: Hotel Secrets from the Travel Detective

Indispensable information for away-from-home lodging, from the author of the New York Times bestseller The Travel Detective

In Hotel Secrets from the Travel Detective, America’s best-known and most trusted travel authority reveals the insider knowledge that can make every hotel stay as comfortable as (and sometimes even more cost-efficient than) home. With his incomparable access and nose for news, Peter Greenberg shares the secrets that people who know hotels—managers, maids, reservation clerks, bellhops, chefs, and maintenance guys—don’t want you to know about value, service, safety, security, and cleanliness. Tips include:

• How to tell if your room is really clean
• What never to order from room service
• The real way to prevent hotel crime
• How to beat excessive hotel phone charges
• The exact rooms where headline-making events took place

Drawn from the author’s experiences as both an investigative reporter and a constant traveler, Hotel Secrets from the Travel Detective is an essential guide to everything from luxury resorts to motels, from airport hotels and bed-and-breakfasts to outrageous (and often secret) alternatives to hotels.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Today show travel editor Greenberg (The Travel Detective) is determined to get travelers the best hotel rooms and perks for the least amount of money, whether they’re staying at a Holiday Inn or a Ritz-Carlton. His advice covers everything from how to tip, snag a nice room and make friends with the concierge to ordering room service and childproofing a room. His advice is a choppy mix of the valuable (e.g., a hotel’s Web site isn’t always the best place to find the lowest rate), the commonsensical (e.g., beware the charges that may be incurred for merely opening a mini bar), the gutsy (e.g., ask if there’s a handicapped-accessible room available when arriving at a hotel—even if you’re not handicapped—since those rooms are larger), the far-fetched (e.g., if room service won’t bring a specific dish, call the hotel dining room and ask them to deliver what you want via room service) and the paranoid (e.g., hotels that have in-room safes aren’t trustworthy). All the same, Greenberg’s chatty humor and use of detailed anecdotes will be appreciated by both jet-setters and those just beginning their travels
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From the Inside Flap

Indispensable information for away-from-home lodging, from the author of the New York Times bestseller The Travel Detective

In Hotel Secrets from the Travel Detective, America?s best-known and most trusted travel authority reveals the insider knowledge that can make every hotel stay as comfortable as (and sometimes even more cost-efficient than) home. With his incomparable access and nose for news, Peter Greenberg shares the secrets that people who know hotels?managers, maids, reservation clerks, bellhops, chefs, and maintenance guys?don?t want you to know about value, service, safety, security, and cleanliness. Tips include:

? How to tell if your room is really clean
? What never to order from room service
? The real way to prevent hotel crime
? How to beat excessive hotel phone charges
? The exact rooms where headline-making events took place

Drawn from the author?s experiences as both an investigative reporter and a constant traveler, Hotel Secrets from the Travel Detective is an essential guide to everything from luxury resorts to motels, from airport hotels and bed-and-breakfasts to outrageous (and often secret) alternatives to hotels.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Villard; 1 edition (March 9, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375759727
• ISBN-13: 978-0375759727
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,133,452 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Peter Greenberg is America's most recognized, honored and respected front-line travel news journalist. He is Travel Editor for CBS News, appearing on CBS This Morning, CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley, and CBS Sunday Morning, among other broadcast platforms.

Greenberg is also host of the nationally syndicated Peter Greenberg Worldwide Radio show, broadcast each week from a different remote location around the world. The live, three-hour weekly radio program and a daily short-form travel feature are syndicated by United Stations and are heard on a combined 400+ stations.

An Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter and producer, Greenberg is the consummate insider when it comes to reporting the travel business as news. No other journalist brings his extensive level of expertise and experience to the travel process. Travel Weekly named him one of the most influential people in the travel industry, along with Al Gore, Bill Marriott and Richard Branson.

Greenberg was honored with News & Documentary Emmy Award as part of the Dateline NBC team for outstanding coverage of a breaking news story in a news magazine.

He is also a contributing writer to AARP The Magazine, The New Yorker, Parade, AARP.org, Forbes.com, BNET.com, and Bing Travel. He has been a featured guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The View, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Dr. Phil, and Larry King Live.

Greenberg is the author of the New York Times best-selling "Travel Detective" series. His most recent book, New Rules of the Road, offers his expert advice and insight on how to travel efficiently - and well - during tough economic times. His upcoming book, The Best Places for Everything, will be published by Rodale in Spring 2012. Previous titles include the New York Times best-sellers, Don't Go There! and The Complete Travel Detective Bible.

He was the creator, co-executive producer and host of CNBC's acclaimed prime-time specials, "Inside American Airlines: A Week in the Life" and "Cruise Inc: Big Money on the High Seas."

His investigative work culminated in the one-hour NBC Dateline special entitled, "Black Box Mystery: The Crash of the Concorde," revealing for the first time what really happened when the supersonic aircraft crashed outside of Paris in 2000.

An expert in aviation safety and security, Greenberg is creator and co-executive producer of "Secrets of the Black Box," a special series for the History Channel which investigates the world's most tragic aviation disasters. He produces and co-hosts a series of one-hour television specials called "The Royal Tour," which feature personal, one-on-one journeys through various countries with their heads of state, including the President of Mexico, King of Jordan, Prime Minister of New Zealand and President of Peru.

His Web site, PeterGreenberg.com, is one of the premier travel news resources for consumers and industry insiders.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read Before Travel Season Begins..., March 10, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Hotel Secrets from the Travel Detective: Insider Tips on Getting the Best Value, Service, and Security in Accommodations from Bed-and-Breakfasts to Five-Star Resorts (Paperback)

This is Greenberg's best book yet. I consider myself a very frequent traveler, but thanks to him, I now understand better the internecine workings of the internet and these third party websites and how to make it work for me without getting trapped by it and get a better deal in the process. That section alone was worth the price of the book! I now know how to pack much better for a hotel stay. I learned some discomforting facts about what the maids don't often clean. but Greenberg explains how how to make sure it's been cleaned. There are some funny sections as well, and I laughed a lot while reading his section on rooms with a past. Perhaps the biggest lesson I always learn from Greenberg is how to become a more savvy,  but also responsible traveler, that it can sometimes be a war out there but it doesn't have to be if you arm yourself with information -- especially the kind of inside information Greenberg provides. A must read. He is my travel hero....

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging, Informative and Helpful, July 13, 2006

By 

Allan M. Gathercoal "fdoamerica" (Norcross, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hotel Secrets from the Travel Detective: Insider Tips on Getting the Best Value, Service, and Security in Accommodations from Bed-and-Breakfasts to Five-Star Resorts (Paperback)

So many travel writers tell you where to go, what to see and at what price. Greenberg takes a new tack - he tells you who is really in charge (within hotels: concierge, bellhop, doorman, etc.), why hotels do what they do (hotel ratings, bolting down remote controls, etc.) and, most importantly, what to avoid. The chapter that considers housekeeping is worth the book alone. This section on hotel sanitation and cleanliness is not for the squeamish.

I travel extensively and found that Greenberg's book is not only an enjoyable read, but a helpful read. I took away tips for travel that I will definitely use in the future. It would have been helpful if Greenberg had broken down the franchise hotel chains that exist today and highlighted those that he found outstanding. Yes, he does promote a philosophy that is "consumer aggressive" and demanding, but, as we all know, it has become a jungle out there and those that speak up get the best treatment and, in the hotel industry, the best rooms. Highly recommended

26 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Waste of my money!, June 6, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Hotel Secrets from the Travel Detective: Insider Tips on Getting the Best Value, Service, and Security in Accommodations from Bed-and-Breakfasts to Five-Star Resorts (Paperback)

I have worked in the hotel industry for 17 years in the Front Office and Housekeeping. I cannot believe the crock of baloney that this man is dishing out. I have had to deal with "know-it-alls" in the travel industry before and that is why I had to read this book. He states to get the best rate is to call the Manager on Duty, Director of Sales or the General Manager. Good luck in finding them! The manager on duty is too busy dealing with all the people that booked cheap rooms but are demanding the Presidential Suite. If you don't pay for it you are not getting it! This man has only added gasoline to the fire. Save your money-Try being nice to the Front Desk person and they will go out of their way for you. Demand the world and get the worst room in the world!