Anyone who has worked on a hotel's front desk will have a catalogue of baffling guest requests, but there is one particular line of questioning that stands out as universally irritating for staff.
The infuriating guest question
Amy Jones, a senior travel journalist with four years of experience as a hotel receptionist, has lifted the lid on the single most annoying habit of would-be customers. The issue consistently arises when the hotel or its restaurants are operating at full capacity, typically on busy weekends.
"Friday nights, in the hotel and two restaurants, were often fully booked," Jones explains, describing the overwhelming stress that permeated the corridors as staff worked to ensure smooth guest experiences. Despite clear explanations from reception, many callers refused to accept the simple reality of being fully booked.
"Can't you squeeze us in?" The restaurant dilemma
The most common frustrating exchange, according to Jones, revolved around dinner reservations. After being informed that the cosy pub or restaurant was fully booked for the evening, guests would persistently ask, "Don't you have any tables?" followed by the inevitable, "Can't you squeeze us in anywhere?"
This was bewildering for staff, as if they could magically add extra tables to a packed dining room. Jones highlights a fundamental misunderstanding of how restaurants operate: "90 people can't sit down all at once to eat at 7pm in a restaurant that only seats 45 at a time."
Even when offered alternative, less popular times like 5.30pm or 9pm, guests would often push for their desired slot, not grasping the concept of table turnover and reservation management.
The same story for hotel rooms
This pattern wasn't confined to dining. When the hotel itself was fully booked for the weekend, the same logic-defying questions would come. After being told no rooms were available, guests would probe again with "Don't you have any rooms available?"
Some would then suggest impractical solutions, like taking the smallest room or squeezing a family of five into a double room. "It was as if those on the other end of the line thought we were making it up," Jones recalls. While asking once is understandable, the persistent refusal to accept a factual answer became a major source of irritation for front-of-house teams.
The simple truth of fully booked
The core message from this insider account is straightforward: hotels and restaurants genuinely do reach full capacity. No matter how much they wish to accommodate every request, there are physical and logistical limits. Staff aren't withholding secret tables or rooms; sometimes, there truly is no way around it.
For travellers, the lesson is clear: when a hospitality professional says they are fully booked, trust them. Pushing the point is unlikely to yield a different result and will almost certainly frustrate the very people trying to help you.
