What a $2,000 a night hotel does that your business can copy

Over $2,000 for one night. The RV for the whole week was $2,000.

We got the RV to follow the Tour de France. We saw some of the stages, and it was not horrible, but it wasn’t amazing. No AC, three people on a little bed, a one-year-old who does not like staying put in a car, and on the last night somebody hit us. After two nights in Luchon, where there was a rave at the campground, we said let’s just do hotels. Europe is decently priced, a hundred bucks-ish, nothing fancy.

Then on one of the final nights I balled out, which I have never done before. A six-star resort in Bordeaux. (Bordeaux is a region. There is no Bordeaux grape. I felt like such a dumb American.) My wife didn’t know the price. She said we’re going to stay here for a week. I said I’d have to get a job here.

I roll my eyes at these places. People online talk about Amangiri, $3,500 a night and they know your name when you walk in. I don’t need you to know my name. Give me a thousand dollars back and let me show up anonymously. When I hear about them I think of country clubs. Spend two thousand bucks a night to then spend $500 on a soda and four million dollars on breakfast, and it’s going to piss me off. The most I had ever spent on a room before this was maybe $500. Give me a comfortable bed.

But since the baby I’ve been trying to get nicer places, and I wanted something special. We use ChatGPT for recommendations now, and a few people said the same name: Les Sources de Caudalie. So I said okay, let’s see.

They crushed it. They crushed it so much I didn’t want to leave the hotel to go bike riding.

The nice touches

Most of what made it feel six-star was tiny. Every business has a version of these, and it is easier than you realize, even if you’re not making a ton of money.

We pull up in the RV, grass perfect, hedges perfect, trees perfect, and the valet says he’d love to park it. I parked it myself. It had gotten dented the night before and I was not losing another $500. He said okay, then let me get all your luggage. After a week of lugging bags and baby stuff in and out of that RV, that alone was worth something.

At check-in: we have ducks at the lake, would you like some corn to go feed them? How expensive is corn feed? Not expensive. I fed the ducks with my daughter almost every day. We were only there two days.

Every hotel crib we’d ever gotten was so bad we ended up sleeping with the baby in our bed. This room had a legit crib, a bottle warmer, a diaper-specific garbage bag, a customized baby towel, and a baby bathtub, all set up before we walked in. I barely remember telling them we had a baby. There was no survey, no “please tell us all your requests.” This is the middle of wine country, not a baby spa.

A free bottle of wine from their winery in the room, with a proper corkscrew, instead of a minibar that ends up costing $400. The cafe was normal priced, $3 or $4 oysters. My French is bad, I do the sad American thing and apologize constantly, and the staff were unbelievably kind. On top of everything.

Something I try to do at a good restaurant (I think Kevin Kelly said it) is order the weirder thing. So at a winery I ordered the pear cider, and it was the best I have ever had. I told the guy working there, then started looking up whether I could ship it to Barcelona. He came back over. I have an extra bottle. He sold it to me at cost, about 20 euros.

A bird took part of my bikini (a grilled cheese sandwich with meat). We’re getting you another one, don’t worry about it. I asked for a 3pm checkout fully expecting a no. “Sir, we would love for you to leave at three.” On the way out: can we get you water, we already put everything in the RV.

When they screwed up

They have a two-Michelin-star restaurant. I booked it. It was my wife’s birthday and my daughter’s birthday, and I hyped it up, because a lot of the time anticipation is as good as the experience. I told my wife nothing except that we were going to have such a good night. We got a nanny. Most hotels have a nanny service, this one was about 40 bucks an hour, and my cheat code is to ask for someone who is a mom.

We get to the hotel and they say, your reservation for the Michelin dinner is canceled.

My friends. I have never spent this much on a hotel. This is more than the whole RV trip. Can you figure this out, please. I was polite. I did not want to lose my temper. But I booked it. Come on y’all.

It’s not a happy ending. They could not seat us. What they did instead was serve a few of the Michelin dishes in the regular restaurant at no cost and let us hang out with the chef in the kitchen for a bit. Not a perfect fix, but they did something, and I wasn’t going to let it ruin the day.

Consistency is the whole thing

You’re paying more, so your expectations are up. What got me was that it never dropped. Nice room, nice food, nice staff, nice grounds, across every single thing, for the entire stay.

That’s true for a value business too. AppSumo is a good deals business. Are you getting a reasonable response time from support? Is the buying experience decent? Is the product you’re getting actually great? Surprise and delight is a cheesy phrase we’ve all heard. The harder part is making sure the experience holds up across the board.

Two other things from this trip. It was nice to treat ourselves. If you haven’t been to a nice restaurant in a while, or had a nice bottle of wine, or a nice hotel, maybe do it. I’ve spent time asking 80-year-old millionaires whether it was worth it, and I think about that a lot. And if something is not great, you can fix it. We didn’t like the RV, so we stayed at hotels. The trip was rough, so we booked one baller night at the end that we’ll remember. The night before we stayed at a Best Western. That made this one that much more appreciated.

For your business: is there one thing you can do for your customers that would surprise them, and are you consistent on the rest? Corn for the ducks costs almost nothing. Go find yours.

From episode 378 of my podcast, Noah Kagan Presents. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.