Latest news with #GemmaDavies
Sydney Morning Herald
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
The ‘unethical' travel-hack trend hotels hate
Gemma Davies*, 33 and from Manchester in the UK, caught the honeymoon upgrade bug on a trip to Vietnam in 2024. Davies had been sent an advance questionnaire from a cruise she had booked with her girlfriend in Hạ Long Bay, a Unesco World Heritage Site famed for its limestone islands and emerald waters. Davies had noticed Tripadvisor reviewers who were on their honeymoon had been given generous upgrades on the two-night riverboat cruise. 'The questionnaire asked me if we were celebrating anything and I thought: why not say we're on honeymoon too? Although to be honest we have zero intention of getting married!' When the couple arrived, their cabin had been upgraded and their bed was adorned with towels folded into swan shapes and scattered rose petals. 'That was lovely,' Davies recalls. The trouble came when the pair arrived for their seating at dinner and found staff had flanked their table with a 'ginormous' illuminated heart and a banner reading 'happy honeymoon'. 'Everyone started cheering and clapping, which I found hilarious,' Davies recalls. 'My girlfriend, who is an introvert, said: 'Oh my God, what have you done?'' Despite the 'challenge' of spending two days posing as honeymooners, Davies reprised the freebie-hunting tactic at two further hotels in Vietnam, where the couple enjoyed room upgrades, free cakes and champagne and more towel swans and petals – and left glowing reviews after their stays. 'I don't see it as taking the p--- at all,' Davies argues. 'It's more a way of amplifying your experience as a hotel guest.' Advice pieces on how to blag perks such as hotel and flight upgrades have been a staple of travel magazines since the 1990s. What's new these days is a subculture of unabashed social media 'travel hacks'. When, on Apr 20, TikTokker @ wrote the post: 'Unethical travel hack: fake a honeymoon at check-in!', superimposed on a picture of the sea-view balcony of his upgraded suite in Greece, it received half a million views and tens of thousands of likes. But not everyone celebrated Rod's 'win'. Italian hotel receptionist Leila Al Azawi responded: 'If you are on a REAL honeymoon and don't get special attention you can say thank you to all these liars who try every other day!', while Greek hotelier Panos weighed in: 'As a hotel worker, we know your tricks; don't be so sure!'.
The Age
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
The ‘unethical' travel-hack trend hotels hate
Gemma Davies*, 33 and from Manchester in the UK, caught the honeymoon upgrade bug on a trip to Vietnam in 2024. Davies had been sent an advance questionnaire from a cruise she had booked with her girlfriend in Hạ Long Bay, a Unesco World Heritage Site famed for its limestone islands and emerald waters. Davies had noticed Tripadvisor reviewers who were on their honeymoon had been given generous upgrades on the two-night riverboat cruise. 'The questionnaire asked me if we were celebrating anything and I thought: why not say we're on honeymoon too? Although to be honest we have zero intention of getting married!' When the couple arrived, their cabin had been upgraded and their bed was adorned with towels folded into swan shapes and scattered rose petals. 'That was lovely,' Davies recalls. The trouble came when the pair arrived for their seating at dinner and found staff had flanked their table with a 'ginormous' illuminated heart and a banner reading 'happy honeymoon'. 'Everyone started cheering and clapping, which I found hilarious,' Davies recalls. 'My girlfriend, who is an introvert, said: 'Oh my God, what have you done?'' Despite the 'challenge' of spending two days posing as honeymooners, Davies reprised the freebie-hunting tactic at two further hotels in Vietnam, where the couple enjoyed room upgrades, free cakes and champagne and more towel swans and petals – and left glowing reviews after their stays. 'I don't see it as taking the p--- at all,' Davies argues. 'It's more a way of amplifying your experience as a hotel guest.' Advice pieces on how to blag perks such as hotel and flight upgrades have been a staple of travel magazines since the 1990s. What's new these days is a subculture of unabashed social media 'travel hacks'. When, on Apr 20, TikTokker @ wrote the post: 'Unethical travel hack: fake a honeymoon at check-in!', superimposed on a picture of the sea-view balcony of his upgraded suite in Greece, it received half a million views and tens of thousands of likes. But not everyone celebrated Rod's 'win'. Italian hotel receptionist Leila Al Azawi responded: 'If you are on a REAL honeymoon and don't get special attention you can say thank you to all these liars who try every other day!', while Greek hotelier Panos weighed in: 'As a hotel worker, we know your tricks; don't be so sure!'.
Telegraph
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
‘We faked our honeymoon for a free hotel room upgrade'
Gemma Davies*, 33 and from Manchester, caught the honeymoon upgrade bug on a trip to Vietnam in 2024. Davies had been sent an advance questionnaire from a cruise she had booked with her girlfriend in Hạ Long Bay, a Unesco World Heritage Site famed for its limestone islands and emerald waters. Davies had noticed Tripadvisor reviewers who were on their honeymoon had been given generous upgrades on the two-night riverboat cruise. 'The questionnaire asked me if we were celebrating anything and I thought: why not say we're on honeymoon too? Although to be honest we have zero intention of getting married!' When the couple arrived, their cabin had been upgraded and their bed was adorned with towels folded into swan shapes and scattered rose petals. 'That was lovely,' Davies recalls. The trouble came when the pair arrived for their seating at dinner and found staff had flanked their table with a 'ginormous' illuminated heart and a banner reading 'happy honeymoon'. 'Everyone started cheering and clapping, which I found hilarious,' Davies recalls. 'My girlfriend, who is an introvert, said: 'Oh my God, what have you done?'' Despite the 'challenge' of spending two days posing as honeymooners, Davies reprised the freebie-hunting tactic at two further hotels in Vietnam, where the couple enjoyed room upgrades, free cakes and champagne and more towel swans and petals – and left glowing reviews after their stays. 'I don't see it as taking the p--- at all,' Davies argues. 'It's more a way of amplifying your experience as a hotel guest.' Advice pieces on how to blag perks such as hotel and flight upgrades have been a staple of travel magazines since the 1990s. What's new these days is a subculture of unabashed social media 'travel hacks'. When, on Apr 20, TikTokker @ wrote the post: 'Unethical travel hack: fake a honeymoon at check-in!', superimposed on a picture of the sea-view balcony of his upgraded suite in Greece, it received half a million views and tens of thousands of likes. @ Comment your unethical travel hacks #traveltok #travelhacks #greece ♬ Disappear - Maniak-B But not everyone celebrated Rod's 'win'. Italian hotel receptionist Leila Al Azawi responded: 'If you are on a REAL honeymoon and don't get special attention you can say thank you to all these liars who try every other day!', while Greek hotelier Panos weighed in: 'As a hotel worker, we know your tricks; don't be so sure!'. The trend comes alongside a sharp rise in 'friendly fraud', a tactic whereby a consumer makes an online shopping purchase with their own credit card, including for services such as hotels, and then requests a chargeback from the issuing bank after receiving the purchased goods or services. Twenty-something Londoners Ricky Liu and his partner Tom deployed the honeymoon upgrade hack in December, also on an Asian cruise. On the first night of their stay in an upgraded cabin, a waitress arrived at Ricky and Tom's dinner table with rainbow cocktails as other staff members waved their lit camera torches and Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You blasted out over the ship's speakers. Ricky – who admits he 'felt the full weight of guilt' for lying – says there was another couple at dinner who were genuinely on their honeymoon and were cheering them on. 'We were asked about our wedding rings and we said they had gone for a fitting,' Liu admits. A video of the couple's romantic moment has received 3.8 million likes. @ ♬ original sound - Ricky Liu Katrina Rohman is a marketing manager for hotel group Future Inns, which has properties in Bristol, Cardiff and Plymouth. She says the family-owned UK hotel group has 'definitely seen a rise' in guests mentioning birthdays, anniversaries, or honeymoons at the time of booking in the hope of receiving an upgrade or a complimentary treat. 'Most requests are fairly tactful and say something along the lines of: 'We are celebrating our anniversary during this stay and would love anything you might be able to offer to make it extra special',' she says. Some guests, however, have more cheek: 'They will outright ask for a suite upgrade, a bottle of champagne, or free dinners, even when they've booked a standard room.' Vicky Saynor, owner of Bethnal & Bec, says the improbable numbers of supposed event celebrants booking her luxury self-catering properties led the property owner to institute a formal policy of paid-for birthday/just married/ anniversary/babymoon upgrades in 2019. 'We simply couldn't afford to do something special for everybody who asked for it,' she said, adding: 'refusal often caused offence'. The property's £20 event add-on offering includes brownies, eco balloons and a banner, with organic prosecco or champagne available for an additional supplement. 'Though when we know guests personally or are aware they are celebrating and don't ask for something for free we pop a small welcome gift into the room for them,' Saynor adds. Restaurateurs too report a rise in the 'fake cake' brigade: customers pretending it is their birthday to blag free cakes and desserts. Emma Reid, 58, and based in Cardiff, is one such bold diner. 'I regularly cite a birthday or anniversary to get free drinks and dessert at restaurants,' she says. 'My best ever blag was a bottle of Veuve Clicquot for my '40th' when I was 42.' Reid says her husband 'dies of embarrassment' at her blagging tactics, which also extend to hotel stays. 'I once cried at a hotel reception about a room we were given and they gave us the honeymoon suite,' Reid says. 'I'm an expert at getting upgrades to rooms with balconies.' Some hoteliers are now asking for proof of birthday dates and wedding certificates before they wheel out the free fizz, with reports that reception staff at sunshine resorts in the States are performing 'ring checks' (checking wedding bands for signs of long wear and tan lines). Rohman thinks hoteliers 'develop a bit of a sixth sense' for spotting when guests are on the take. Dr Charlotte Russell, a clinical psychologist and founder of The Travel Psychologist, understands why travel blagging tactics are on the rise. Russell says that the cost of living, soaring hotel rates and unrealistic expectations of the hotel-going experience that are broadcast via social media create a 'perfect storm' to encourage guests to go after freebies. As with any dishonest or morally questionable behaviour, she says, there are ways that guests justify this blagging to themselves: 'By reconstruing their conduct ('it's not that bad'); minimising the negative consequences ('it didn't hurt anyone'); or blaming the recipients ('they make the prices too high anyway').' Gemma Davies has no regrets and says that she will 'definitely' try the travel hack again, albeit judiciously: 'It would be tricky on a week-long all-inclusive where we would bump into people again and again and would maybe need to fake a proposal story,' she laughs. Expert upgrade blagger Reid is sometimes faced with a hotel staff member who's seen it all. 'I sometimes have to accept defeat after exhausting my repertoire!' she admits. 'Would I do this again? Absolutely, yes,' Liu concludes.
The Independent
09-02-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Corridor care and no privacy: Inside A&E at the height of the NHS winter crisis
Trollies hem the corridor and surround the central nursing hub of the acute centre of Newham Hospital's emergency department, lined up end-to-end in the humming ward. Most are occupied, some by patients too ill to sit up, while others are monitored by security. Doctors and nurses are assessing patients as other staff and family members try to squeeze past in the crowded space. Bright fluorescent lights beam down and dozens of monitors make incessant noise over the chatter of patients, families and hospital workers, with no privacy to speak of. This is the reality of England's NHS in winter where a record 96 per cent of hospital beds are currently full. Newham Hospital has just declared it was at Operational Pressures Escalation Level (OPEL) 4 - the highest alert level for a hospital, where ramping pressures mean the local service is unable to provide comprehensive care. Anna Morgan, consultant in emergency medicine and the clinical lead, says corridor care is an unavoidable necessity in an under-pressure department running at double its capacity. 'It is a very crowded, very busy department at the moment, for today and the last few days,' she told The Independent. 'This department was originally built with the idea of having about 250 patients, is what we're told. And we quite regularly now get over 500 a day... so that is a challenge.' Gemma Davies, the deputy associate director of nursing in urgent and emergency care, says private places to carry out personal care or confidential conversations with patients were 'at a premium'. 'So all the things that we would normally do in quite a controlled space and having monitoring equipment then becomes almost like 'move this to there, move that to there, move that', and it's almost like playing nursing Jenga with patients,' she says. For the doctors, nurses, and non-clinical staff, the pressure has been relentless all winter. On Wednesday, nearly 450 patients streamed through the hospital's A&E department, and staff in Thursday's morning huddle were warned a further 424 were expected through the doors that day, keeping the heat on an already stretched department. Jennifer Walker, the associate director of site operations and community integration, says Newham has made an OPEL 4 declaration every week so far this year. 'During January, the pressure has been considerable and extended,' she says. 'We've seen patients extended in an A&E for a long time, a really long time sometimes; we've seen higher numbers of patients needing services like mental health in A&E we've seen an increase in children in A&E from respiratory illness; and we've had a really difficult time with flu. 'All these things combined have meant that for the staff and for the teams and the patients it's been really difficult.' And it's been a familiar picture in emergency wards across England. Surging winter virus cases have pushed already strained resources and staff past their limits. Last week was the busiest week for hospitals across England this season, according to the NHS, as cases of the winter vomiting bug norovirus continued to rise, contributing to a record 96 per cent of adult hospital beds occupied around the country. Professor Julian Redhead, NHS national clinical director for urgent and emergency care says: 'The twin pressures of winter viruses and problems discharging patients means hospitals are close to full – even as more beds have been opened to manage the increased demand.' One of the biggest issues with space in the emergency department is finding beds on hospital wards to take the often critically ill patients. Finding that space is the job of Ms Walker and her operations team, matching the right patient to the right bed and ensuring discharges happen safely but swiftly. This is a particular issue in Newham as the hospital sits within one of England's most diverse communities and many of its residents live in areas of high deprivation. Ms Walker says a high number of people they treat are homeless or in temporary accommodation, and they've seen an increase in people waiting for nursing home and residential care placements over winter meaning they often have nowhere to be discharged to. The hospital has worked to help patients in all of those situations and has managed to reduce its average length of bed stay by one day over the past year, but with increasing numbers of patients each day Ms Walker says it is hard to keep up. 'We work really closely with partners to try to improve our processes. So actually, we've done a lot to make things better, but we just still can't cope with the demand that's coming in,' Ms Walker says. 'As an individual, as a leader, I find it incredibly difficult. I find it heartbreaking at times.' Through the morning, the number of people limping into the emergency department's main intake area rises, while the department's specialised waiting rooms began to fill up. Children and their parents pack out the paediatric area, while others wait patiently in the physical injuries area for their suspected fractures and other ailments to be assessed. The smaller specialised waiting areas are part of the department's attempt to ensure patients are seen swiftly, but all the staff who spoke to The Independent acknowledge sometimes longer waits are unavoidable. Sarah Nunn, a consultant in emergency medicine, says it can be 'really demoralising' when patients are waiting a long time for care or in spaces that are not meant to be used for treating people, but the thing that keeps staff going is knowing they are doing their utmost for patients despite the challenging circumstances. 'There's so many really dedicated, hard-working people that really do want to do the best for our patients under any circumstance,' she says. Dr Morgan says: 'Whatever's going on, the thing that we still have in our power is to be as kind as we can to people, and make sure we do still give them the care that is within our power.' And people should always seek help if they think they need it, Ms Davies says. 'If you come in, I can quite quickly determine what level of care you need,' she says. 'If you don't come in, we can't have that conversation.'
