Here’s What’s Missing from Your Hotel — and How to Get It

By Christopher Elliot
Senior Writer

Something is missing from your hotel — and you should know about it before your next trip.

Hotels started cutting corners during the pandemic, and many never stopped. From sewing kits to toilet paper to good customer service, some things just went out the window.

Wait, toilet paper? Yep. I was staying at a chain hotel in Lucerne, Switzerland, a few weeks ago, and my room had no toilet paper. I found a nearby supply closet and restocked my room with this essential item.

A Decline in Amenities

“I’ve definitely seen a decline in amenities,” says Jenifer Breaux, a luxury travel advisor. “The coveted amenities that guests were accustomed to receiving have decreased — or have become non-existent.”

Why are hotels running out of toilet paper?

Yeah, but toilet paper?

OK, I’m willing to give my hotel the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes, housekeepers forget. But I’ve also stayed in other accommodations, including vacation rentals, where there was just half a roll (and guests quickly switched to tissues before heading to the grocery store to restock).

Kathleen Panek, who runs a bed and breakfast in Shinnston, W.Va., says the minimum is two spare rolls “and never less three-quarters roll mounted.” But she says part of the problem is that guests sometimes take an extra roll or two with them when they check out.

TP Thief!

She recalls talking to a fellow innkeeper who told a remarkable story of a toilet paper thief.

“She was struggling down the stairs with a large suitcase to check out,” she says. “The suitcase slipped and rolled to the bottom of the stairs, flew open, revealing all the toilet paper that had been in the supply closet.”

Here are some other amenities missing from your hotel

What else is missing lately? Here are just a few examples:

Clock radios

There’s a good reason for this amenity’s disappearance. People no longer rely on the devices to wake up, preferring the alarm on their phone or a wake-up call from the front desk. Also, the devices were a real hassle, say frequent hotel guests like Richard Wong, a retired government worker from Washington, D.C.

“Guests forget to deactivate the alarms when they check out, waking their neighbors at 6 a.m.,” he says. But still, some clock radios also had charging outlets that were helpful, and at least that feature is missed.

Soap

All the extras that used to make a hotel stay memorable have vanished, says veteran traveler Andy Abramson. “Mouthwash, sewing kits, individual soaps — I can’t find them anymore,” says Abramson, who runs a communications firm in Las Vegas.

“Even if you ask for them, they’re not available.” Most hotels have adapted to the soap in a bottle, saving a lot of those wasteful one-off tiny hotel bars of soap.

Again, these small amenities are the victims of cost-cutting, and they’re often presented as an improvement because they make the hotel more sustainable.

Hoteliers at luxury resorts say guests often complain when they don’t get individual soaps, but it reduces waste, which, does make the hotel more sustainable. Just maybe not as luxurious feeling.

Housekeeping

Hotels saw an opportunity to cut housekeeping services during the pandemic, and some took full advantage of it. Many haven’t brought back daily housekeeping. You’ll only get a change of towels or your room cleaned on demand. “Missing services like housekeeping are probably due to continued cost-cutting measures,” explains travel coach Ariel Figg. Some properties claim that the changes make their hotels more “sustainable.” (Yeah — financially sustainable.)

Here’s the biggest missing item from your hotel

Maybe the biggest missing item is invisible: adequate customer service.

Andrew Garnett, CEO of Special Needs Group, which organizes travel for people with disabilities, has tracked the decline of customer service closely. He says customer service has slipped in the hospitality industry and has yet to fully recover from the pandemic. 

Hotels are quick to blame their customer service issues on staff shortages or supply chain issues, but there’s more to it. As the travel industry breaks record after record, it’s a seller’s market for hotel rooms. They don’t need to take care of you to be successful — so they don’t.

“My advice is to book with a reputable company that cares about their customers’ experience,” says Garnett. “The good ones will do everything they can to take care of you.”

Yeah, but how?

What to do if Something is Missing from your Hotel Room

I’ve encountered so many removed items in my room lately, that I’ve almost lost count — and I’m not even counting the toilet paper. I’m talking about missing soap, coffee makers, towels, and even pillows.

Ask for a Replacement

The easiest way to get the item you’re missing is to ask for it. Even the worst will respond to a request for a new towel or extra coffee. But you may have to ask twice. 

Bring your Own

If it’s something really important, don’t rely on the hotel for it. Bring it with you. I pack my own shampoo and soap, and I always bring my French press to make coffee. The only in-room coffee makers I trust are those pricey Nespresso ones, and you don’t find those too often.

Escalate your case

Sometimes, when a disappearing amenity doesn’t reappear, you have to take your case to the next level. Ask for the manager on duty or the hotel’s general manager. It may take a while, but if the hotel can fix it for you, it will. And if that doesn’t work? Well, if you’re at a chain hotel, you can go up one level and contact a manager at the company’s headquarters. I list their names, numbers and email addresses on my consumer advocacy site.

Guests might be more understanding of these lapses in service in amenities if room rates were reasonable and the properties were more contrite. But instead of apologizing, they often hit you with extra fees. 

“Most offensive are the extra resort fees for services like using the pool or gym, whether or not you want them,” says Mitch Krayton, a travel advisor from Aurora, Colo.

You don’t have to be a hotel analyst to know where all of this is headed. Hotel rates will come back down as the pendulum swings in our favor. Then it’s payback time. Angry guests will extract cheap rates from the same hotels that are cutting their amenities. And the hotels will probably deserve it.