A column on CNN the other day got me thinking. It was a bit of a confessional on items the author (and her friends) had taken from various hotels. “Is it,” she asked, “ever OK to take things from a hotel?”
The answer she got from various hotel managers was a resounding, “Yes!” That is, if the item is purposely designed by hotel management to be taken or ‘stolen.’
All those toiletries and wrapped items you’re familiar with – soaps, lotions, sewing kits, shoe polish – they’re all designed to be carried out worry-free.
Any consumable or disposable item put out in your room for use while you’re there, like stationary, pens, memo pads, etc., is also ripe for walking. (Notice the emphasis on the ‘in your room’). As most know, hotels like it when guests take certain mementos – it helps build the brand and hopefully makes you pine for a return visit.
But, then, what about the other stuff?
The ‘other’ stuff being robes, pillows, towels, and anything else, nailed down or not, that strikes your fancy. Here’s where it gets hairy. The general sense seems to be if the item has the hotel’s name on it, anything outside of the marquee out front is probably designed as a bit of mobile PR. Or, as one general manager put it, ‘designed to be stolen.’ I’ve found if the hotel doesn’t sell the same item in its gift shop, it can be yours. If it’s for sale, but you go for the heavily discounted version? It varies among properties (and individual managers’ tolerances) as to whether you’ll be charged for the pilfered robe you could have bought for $120).
Ever taken a towel with you?
Maybe for one last dip in the pool before you left? (Wink, wink.) Despite the old travel legends about being charged, most properties will assume it was taken in error – as long as you didn’t clear out the whole set.
In fact, the real indicator of future impending charges seems to be a matter of quantity, quality and volume. Take one, you’re probably safe, take a dozen and risk some post check-out charges to your Visa. If the item you’re thinking of making off with has an insurable value, you might want to think twice. (Like the guest who tried to walk out of the Hong Kong W with the $300,000 lobby Warhol – he got as far as the street and left it propped against a streetlight). And volume? Anything so large you probably can’t fit it in your suitcase– like that flat screen – is probably a no-no.
Still confused?
Let’s talk some real-world incidents (and delve into the fascinating world of weird stuff people take). Hotel managers report (as do some of my lighter-fingered friends) that guests have walked away with tea sets, hair dryers, lobby nicknacks, pictures, mattresses, and exercise equipment, along with the old, boring stand-bys like TVs, mirrors, and showerheads.
More unique (and perhaps cheap) are the folks that steal light bulbs, toilet paper, chandelier crystals, and dare I say it, Gideon bibles. iPods are relatively new to the list, but are fast climbers. Last year a man went on trial in England for stealing 40,000 hotel hangars (the court transcript is hysterical, find it here).
It’s not uncommon for some guests to clear out an entire room worth of furniture. This explains why some proprietors are suspicious of those who claim to be traveling with a U-haul because they are moving. Double strike? Asking for a room at the back of the inn.
The strangest theft I can remember was the taking of the hotel’s resident cat from a property I frequented in Canada. I myself once ‘borrowed’ the huge lobby floral arrangement from the Sheraton Boston during my college days, but don’t count it as outright theft because it was replaced before I left.
What’s the dumbest thing that people take? The remote control. Thousands go missing despite the fact they’re programmed to only work in the hotel. They’re so popular, the Grand Hyatt sells them for $14, even though they won’t work at home. Really want to make your domicile look like a hotel? Many chains have entire online collections (e.g. “Hyatt At Home”) that help you replicate that bed-in-a-box look, selling the same sheets, towels, fixtures and furniture you could be hoofing out the backdoor.
I do think that hotels miss the point regarding the sale of certain popular items. Who wants to pay for something they think they can get for free? And where’s the thrill? Or maybe it’s the convenience factor.
One friend confided she stuffed a tea pot into an oversized purse and left, in a hurry to make the airport, to avoid a lengthier transaction in the establishment’s shop. Another friend gleefully recounts the guilty pleasure she gets from accumulating her own full set of expensive china by taking it, one bit at a time, from a favorite hotel restaurant. I had to almost forcibly restrain my husband from packing the nautically-themed lamp on a Disney cruise (also sold in the gift shop for an eye-popping figure).
I had less success at the Bermuda hotel hosting our wedding reception – we left with several mementos, including the cake knife, champagne bucket, and a couple of glasses. (I’d like to think our $10,000 tab covered it, though). And, I’m not sure, but when I visit, I wonder whether my mother-in-law made off with the salt and pepper shakers.
One of the things that seems nonsensical to me is the idea that selling items will deter theft. Maybe because I used to be involved in law enforcement, this confounds me. If they sell the stuff, how would they ever be able to prove you stole it? Of course, hotels probably won’t like the other bit of tactical advice I give to friends and relatives that covet certain lodging amenities: “If you want it, take it – just don’t take it from your room! Try the room down the hall that the maid left open, or better yet, try the maid’s cart.” This explains the plush robe I acquired from a certain four-star facility without getting it charged back to my tab. Then again, the places with the highest rates usually expect guests to make themselves at home and then take it home.
I think a lot of folks leave things behind, not because they’re honest, but because they’re afraid they’ll end up paying for them. The truth is, when it comes to things guests shouldn’t be taking, we’re all paying for them. According to a report from 2007, klepto-inclined customers make off with about $100 million worth of stuff a year. Travel trivia: what’s the item most frequently taken from hotels? (Answer: washcloths). The weirdest? Maybe the incident at the Beverley Wilshire Hotel when a patron purloined an entire marble fireplace.
Who pays for all that? You do. Ever wonder about all those fees hotels tack onto your bill? How ‘bout the ‘hotel heist’ fee?
Truth is, we all do it to some extent. Telling tales of taken towels and other hotel trinkets acquired can be a bit of a parlor game. But relax! Should you be chagrined over that Paris Athenee ashtray or that Plaza trashcan, feel no shame. At least you didn’t try to steal an entire hotel, like Kouadio Koussai. The African immigrant was convicted of trying to swindle the SoHo Grand Hotel out of – the Soho Grand Hotel! He tried to file false deeds with the city records office listing himself as the owner. Charged with larceny (the facility is valued at $76 million), he got a year in jail (and probably a ban from the property).
Fess up! What have you taken?
