Hotel and Motel Linens/ Ecology or Budget Maximization?

Of course it is beneficial for the hotel and not so much for the planet, but you may already be reaping some of the cost savings in the form of reduced room rates. I think asking everyone, managing the discounts and managing the linen pickup would cost more than the savings, but if the marketplace is squeezing hotel margins and they have trouble raising prices, I think this is an ok way to reduce costs. And it's probably good for the planet also.

get down and dirty at the hotels

stay with friends

I think (I know) I don't change my sheets at home every day. So why would I expect (want) the hotel to change them each morning if I'm staying there more than one night?

Plus, if I'm staying in a hotel fo 2 or 3 nights, I always spread out and make myself at home. I don't want to worry about having to put (semi) valuables, or personal items away because housekeeping is going to come in each morning.

I keep the Do Not Disturb sign on my door during my stay, and leave a tip that would represent the equal amount if they were entering my room each morning, plus a little more. I do that because they do have to clean up more of a mess, i.e. towels on the floor, extra full garbage cans, etc. Plus, what they do is hard work, and it's how they make their living.

There's nothing wrong with the hotel saving a little money, and I'm sure the housekeepers don't complain if they have one less room to clean.

I do think little changes can help and I almost expect them not to change the sheets everyday any more but some hotels have really gotten carried away in crazy ways.

We stayed in a hotel where nothing electrical would work unless you inserted your room key into a slot on the wall. This led to a real connundrum when I wanted to run get a cup of coffee in the lobby and Mo wanted to stay in bed and watch cartoons. We finally agreed on a password -- he wouldn't open the door unless I gave him the password.

And this same hotel did not pick up recycling! I would sort my stuff instead of not throwing it away. After a few days we'd amassed a bit of stuff. I asked at the desk and was told the hotel didn't recycle -- that I should just put all the trash together. That made me kind of crazy.

At home hardly anyone changes sheets every day except when someone is ill.
When millions of sheets are changed every day of course there is a lot of water
and detergent used.
We once stayed in Hilton where the sheets were changed in the morning when we had breakfast and the beds were not made until around 5 or 6 pm. The room looked really messy. There were no towels in the bathroom so we could not even use the toilet as we could not wash and dry our hands or take a shower after we had been to the beach.
Asked at the desk why we could not get the beds made in the morning.
There were only one set of sheets for each room!!!!!

In Europe as far as I have experinced we don´t get new sheets except if we stay for several nights. Towels we get new ones when we put wet on the floor.

I also agree with boomer that every little bit helps.

We are all encouraged at home to delay doing laundry until we have a full load, use the cold cycle, not cleaning an item until it needs it.

For me, that might add up to 1 less load in a week or 2.

It would effect the hotel a lot more.

The little security-minded person inside of me wonders if you tried a card other than your room key?

Reducing expenditures often translates to fewer resources used.

We don't change our linens every day. Nor our towels.

But the sheets here in the hotel overs the choice: daily or when you want it done (towels are then thrown on the floor, for instance).

But I admit that such is an annoyance for someone who changes at home not only the towels on a daily basis but the linen as well.
So, we've been to some 4+* and 5* hotels last year - where they just ignore their own sheet of paper and make the changes. (Thus, we had to ask that they are not changed. Personally.)

I don't change my linens daily either. but, IMO, if a person is staying in a hotel room, he is entitled to daily service. He is paying for it. Daily maid service is the norm in most hotels in the U.S.

Thinking about it though, I have just come to a realization. If a hotel, as a matter of course, changed the linens say, every third day, and just tidied up and empty the pails daily, I probably would not have a problem with it. I think what bugs me is the way that the hotels are counting on engendering guilt from their patrons by intimating that by getting daily service, he is somehow less concerned about the planet than those who eschew daily changes.

I for one applaud the efforts of the hotels who do this obviously not so completely altruistic conservationist service. Now if they followed through with this policy then raised the rates of the room then that would be unfair to the customer.

If you have a problem with how much the hotels are charging in the first place, then perhaps you are not really an educated consumer and/or didn't look in the appropriate areas for cheaper rates for the same hotel.

The past several years, priceline had helped me stay at some nice hotels (downtown Pittsburgh) on my yearly Christmas vacation.

In European hotels the beds are made, the bathroom is cleaned, the wastebaskets are emptied, they vacuumclean etc. But you do not get clean sheets every day. I do not understand why you think that clean sheets and cleaning and/or fixing up the room belongs together.

The key thing is very common in Europe and Asia. The US seems to be an outlier in not using that.

I think that a customer expects to get a tidied room and clean sheets and towels every day because this has been the common and accepted practice in the U.S. for as long as I have stayed in hotels.

When I travelled this year, there were only two hotels adjacent to where I had to be. One stated, up front, that the sheets were changed twice a week. When I saw the ad, I considered it quite unusual. I really did not want to pay the price of the other place, but writing to others on the net who had been to that hotel, I found that the general consensus was that it was a "dive". From what I gathered, people only went to that hotel if the other one was too expensive for them.

Consuming less should be a goal for all of us to work toward.
Instead of raising room rates many hotels use economising to hold room rates at last years level.

Its one of those win-win situations. At least that is how I view it. I usually just have the hotel change my sheets (and towels) every other day. I get the luxury of having crisp sheets, but save a bit on the environment and feel better about myself at the same time.

The discount thing, although nice, wouldn't really save you that much - how much money per individual room would it save you personally? A couple of bucks at the most.