“You work for a hotel? Hey, hook me up with a discount!”

So the great thing about having my best friend work for a hotel is a hotel discount is never too far away. Unfortunately for her, a lot of other people feel the same way and she’s constantly juggling phone calls from people wanting the hookup. She’s not-so-jokingly referred to herself many times as the “family travel agent.” While it sucks for her, it’s great for the rest of us. It has caused her problems in the past, though. She constantly has to put up her credit card to hold a room for a friend, and sometimes people just decide not to go, not thinking of the cancellation policies and now she has to pay. Then there’s the “I wanted a king bed and got two doubles” complaints or the “Wait, I wanted to stay at this hotel of yours, not that one.” Etc.

Her hookup has gotten me affordable rooms in Times Square, Philadelphia, Charlotte (night out drinking anyone? A hotel room that’s cheaper than a cab? I’ll take it!), Charleston, New Orleans … and probably many other places I’ve forgotten about over the 11 years she’s worked in the industry.

She has worked for a few different hotels, but now she is the sales manager at the Crowne Plaza in Uptown Charlotte. This means she can get the hookup at all of their hotels, which she says are: InterContinental, Hotel Indigo, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites.

Her company must know about how loved ones hit up their employees for cheap hotel rooms, because they created a friends and family program that works through a web site, instead of having to call Colleen and beg her for a discount. The other thing is, Colleen has said I can share this hookup, which is the point of this post. I posted a link on twitter about it and then realized almost instantly, “Wow, this sounds like spam.” So I’m writing a blog about it so you know it’s not spam, not that I know of anyway (I haven’t tried this program, but I do know the old way was awesome).

So, here’s the link. Check it out if you want. Don’t say reading this blog never did anything for you.