If Your Hotel Pillows Could Talk

CNN has an a list of 8 facts about hotel pillows. I hate hotel pillows. I can never get comfortable with hotel pillows, because they are all so soft. I am a hard pillow type of guy. This list opened my eyes to things I never thought about and others I still don't want to know about.

1. That annoying pillow tag? It fought smallpox

This is one thing I have never thought about, but "it's actually a product of the 1800s when some less-than-scrupulous business people were stuffing their pillows and mattresses with old hospital blankets that might have carried smallpox and tuberculosis." Lovely!

2. Your hotel pillow is probably younger than the one you have at home

www.hotelchatter.com

The average age of your hotel pillow is 2 years! Kris Beck at Hilton Worldwide says "a synthetic pillow lasts approximately 18 to 24 months when cared for and laundered properly, while a down or feather pillow can last 24 to 36 months." While Keith Pierce from Wyndham reports that the hotel chain "purchased more than a million pillows last year alone!"

Sadly, my pillow at home is like 5+ year old. Maybe time for a change?

3. Housekeepers and hot dog vendors have something in common

Say what? 

"Rather than tucking a laundered pillowcase under their chin, hospitality expert Jacob Tomsky says that hotel housekeepers have a chop-and-fold method of slipping pillows into pillowcases."

                          

4. In the hotel biz, BYOP = WTF

I could understand people bringing pumpkins could bother housekeepers, but pillows? Why does it matter if I bring my own pillow?

5. Not all rock stars trash hotel rooms the same way

www.today.com

One rocker asked for 15 pillows on the bed. The next morning, they were skewed all over the room. Scandalous? Call the papers!

6. If you want a firm pillow, Singapore is the place

The Conrad Singapore has a pillow menu. 

www.tripadvisor.com 

www.tripadvisor.com

7. You can get your hotel pillow personalized

                                         

"At the Beverly Hills Peninsula, VIP guests, who stay five days at the property, get to sleep on pillowcases monogrammed with their initials.

The hotel has more than a 1,000 pillowcases on hand in a variety of initial combinations, though for the Isabel Isaacs and Zachary Xaviers out there, monogramming a new pillow only takes five to 10 minutes."

8. Don't think too hard about your hotel pillow ... or this article

"When you put your head on a pillow it would blow your mind to think about how many other heads have been on that pillow," he says. "If you go to a hotel and come back a year later and stay in the same room, you're going to put your head on the same pillow and there are a lot of people who have done a lot of things on that pillow on the meantime.

Whatever people do in their rooms, pillows are always there. They're either directly involved or very nearby."

Great...I want to go back to not thinking about my hotel pillows.
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Nine Nights, Six Hotels and Four Countries

I think it's finally done....we might finally have a complete itinerary for moving to Seattle via Australia and Asia! We have changed the flights over and over and coming along with that is many changes in hotels. The great thing about the miles and points community is that many of them have been to the places you are going and can give you great hotel and attraction suggestions so we were influenced by some great suggestions from great people like Keri over at Heels First who has some amazing suggestions for Singapore and Bangkok.

Now that our itinerary is finel I wanted to map out our hotels and actually see how much this trip will end up costing us on the hotel front. So here's the list and how we are paying for the nights:

Park Hyatt Sydney - 2 Nights = Hyatt Visa 2 Free Award Nights + $96 per night for an upgrade to an Opera King = $192

Hilton Cairns (Great Barrier Reef) - 2 Nights = Hilton free weekend nights from Hilton Reserve Card

Radisson Blu Sydney - 2 Nights = 50,000 points from sign up bonus for the Club Carlson Visa card and taking advantage of their book at least one award night, get the last night free benefit!

Grand Hyatt Erawan Bangkok - 1 Night = $144 thanks to the recent 40 percent off sale in Asia/Pacific

Intercontinental Hong Kong - 1 Night = 45,000 points from Kelsey's Priority Club Visa sign up bonus

Conrad Singapore - 1 Night = Originally booked for 40,000 before devaluation and then date change pushed it up to 60,000. So an additional $25 was needed to transfer points from Kelsey's account to mine.

Total for 9 nights =

-2 Hyatt Free Nights
-2 Hilton Free Weekend Night Certificates
-50,000 Radisson points
-45,000 Priority Club Points
-60,000 Hilton Points
-$361 in cash

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