Seemingly trivial reasons why you choose one hotel/airline/shop over another

I’ve been racking my brain since seeing Matt’s post mid-afternoon yesterday and I’ve been trying to think of an example … like, because I liked the colour, or something. But I can’t think of examples that are for anything particularly trivial.
It's probably because what I consider to have value is trivial to everyone else. :)

So - I can think of an example in the category of others not seeing any sense in my decision. We stayed in an AirBnB for 4 nights solely because it was a short stroll to Borough Market in London. We'd both taken 5 days out of our holiday to do Work Stuff and were heading home from there, so we thought we'd like to be based in just the one place for a few days, and duck out to Borough Market for every meal. The pub under the unit we were staying in looked good, but we were busy working out way through the different market stalls ... and there was even a coffee shop a 2min walk away which did good coffee (I know i know, it's easier to find there these days, but it's also still easy to find bad coffee so I was "sniffing out" the Australasian accents behind the coffee machines :)).
 
I've never liked staff being informal. Yes very stuffy of me. It could be a menswear assistant calling me "dude" (when I was younger) for example. Or for the sake of this thread, it is why I have never really liked Virgin.
 
A good hotel gym…is +ve correlated to a good hotel.
Aus country motels - a motel with an internal brick wall or quilt that wraps around the pillows is avoided if possible.
 
I am definitely in the proximity to railway/subway/underground stations, although when I proffered this as the main reason for staying at the Adlon in Berlin I got a few guffaws.

The other thing that often drives us is tea/coffee. Tea making in the room, and availability of brewed coffee in a pot at breakfast (for Mrsoatek).
 
I've taken Cathay in Business (as opposed to Econ) for the short 1 hour Hong Kong - Taipei hop a few times just to get a glass or two of Cathay Delight. My favourite non-alcoholic airline signature drink.

Of course if I have a long transit in HKG then I'll just grab a glass at the lounge instead.
 
I've taken Cathay in Business (as opposed to Econ) for the short 1 hour Hong Kong - Taipei hop a few times just to get a glass or two of Cathay Delight. My favourite non-alcoholic airline signature drink.

Of course if I have a long transit in HKG then I'll just grab a glass at the lounge instead.
We probably asked for a few too many Cathay delights during our trip to Taiwan and Shanghai.
Their cloud 9 is decent too.

I'll definitely be asking for delight at the cathay lounges.
 
Opening windows are always highly desirable - my hotel in Salzburg was so hot and I couldn't get it below 23 - and it had a window that opened about 4cm and that was it. After complaining get again the handyman came up and used his key so I could open it completely while constantly saying Verboten. My comment was Danke Danke Danke and I promise I won't jump
 
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A washing machine. Or within 500m of a laundromat.

A retractable washing line over the bathtub. So 70s but so useful.

A working breakfast hatch in retro country Australian motels. I was talked out of buying a flat in an ex-motel over 20 years ago that had one. Still haven't got over it.
 
I've never liked staff being informal. Yes very stuffy of me. It could be a menswear assistant calling me "dude" (when I was younger) for example. Or for the sake of this thread, it is why I have never really liked Virgin.
Oh yes! I will NEVER stay at another W. We get it, you provide edible undies and condoms in the room, you're so cool!
 
I like round numbers so I'll choose to pay $100 rather than $99.99 for the same product.
Not that it's often an option these days.
 

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