Score one for the Cheap Girl!

I am so proud of myself. Usually, unless I'm working, I shy away from confrontation or anything smacking of asking for special treatment. But I just went online to book our hotel for Thanksgiving weekend and found that our favorite place -- the hotel we've stayed at at least once a year for the past 4 years -- had almost doubled its prices this year.

So, I decided, what the heck? I did some research, learned that a hotel down the street was offering an almost-comparable room for almost $100 less a night, and called the hotel. I told them how we're loyal customers, how we really like their hotel and really want to be able to stay there again, but that we simply can't afford it at their current rate. Could they, pretty please, help me out? The nice gentleman on the phone came back with a rate $50 below the price quoted online. I (genuinely) hemmed and hawed and thanked him, but said I needed to talk it over with the Boy. Then I did some more research and learned that the room at the hotel down the street wasn't quite as good as we'd hoped (we usually try for a suite, so that M can sleep in one room while we hang out in the other, and the "suite" we'd booked turned out not to have two separate rooms, but was in fact just a single room with a half-wall divider). So I called back, thanked the guy again for helping me out, and asked if there was any way he could do any better on the price. He knocked off another $20 a night. Sold!

So, yay! We get to stay in our favorite North Jersey hotel, which makes Thanksgiving somewhat less of a painful slog and somewhat more like a real vacation. And we're not breaking the bank (too badly) to do it. All I had to do was ask nicely -- who knew?

(and a big MWAH to the nice guy at the Embassy Suites who's helping make our Thanksgiving that much nicer).