A former Marriott front desk agent said:
"In 6 years, I checked in 90,000 guests. Not one of them ever asked me the question that would've changed their entire stay."
"They asked for their reservation. They gave their name. They took the key. They walked to the elevator."
"Not one of them ever asked: 'What rooms do you have available tonight?'"
"That question changes everything. Because the answer is almost always: better rooms than the one you're about to get. The system auto-assigns you a room based on an algorithm that optimizes for inventory management not guest experience. It gives you the lowest-category room that matches your reservation. Standard king. Low floor. Parking lot side. That's the default."
"But when you ask me what's available, I open the full inventory. I see the suites sitting empty. The corner rooms unbooked. The premium floors with views that nobody requested. And now I have a reason to move you because you asked."
"In 6 years, I had the ability to upgrade guests on almost every single shift. Empty suites. Open premium rooms. Corner rooms with city views. They were there. Most nights. Most hotels. Most of the time."
"90,000 guests. And not one of them asked what else existed."
I asked her to tell me everything every trick, every mistake, every insider detail from 6 years and 90,000 check-ins behind the Marriott front desk.
Here's all of it 🧵
The sharp rise in the JPY/USD is causing a massive unwind of Yen carry trade positions and contributing to the sharp decline in US stocks. For those who do not understand how this works, a brief explanation
1) Many traders were borrowing Jap Yen (JPY) at low interest rates, converted them to USD and used this to buy US stocks
2) Now that the Bank of Japan (BOJ) is raising interest rates, the JPY has strengthened significantly against the USD.
Now, these traders are in big shit. Not only must they pay higher interest for the JPY they borrowed, they are now facing huge forex losses as well. The USD assets they are holding may not be enough to repay the JPY they have borrowed.
3) This is causing a huge unwind of these trade positions. Traders facing big losses and margin calls are selling their US stocks to raise USD, converting back to JPY and paying back their loans.
4) This can lead to more selling pressure on US stocks and even more declines in the short term. Middle east war escalation, US political uncertainty is also adding to the fear and panic.
As an investor, this is great news because this type of short term crisis and panic is what gives me the opportunity to scoop up high quality US stocks at bigger and bigger discounts. take advantage of temporary mis-pricing caused by short term crisis.
This is how we get richer.
From the dressing room to the pitch, this is the definitive story of the FIFA World Cup 2022.
Captains of the World – a new docuseries with exclusive access to all 32 teams – comes to Netflix 30 December.
Ange Postecoglou on #thfc playing inverted full-backs: “I just copied Pep mate! We do a lot of work on it. It is sometimes about instincts but it is trying to create a system that's as fluid as can be.
If there is space there forget you're a full-back, you're footballer in space so go into the space and then its up to us to make sure we're covering the gaps that are left.”
[TNT Sports]