Trump Hotel raised prices to deter QAnon conspiracists, police files show

[CatWoman]

Washington hotel pushed prices up on March weekend this year
Rise was ‘security tactic to prevent protesters booking rooms’

Police intelligence documents show that Washington’s Trump Hotel raised its rates “as a security tactic”, in the hope of deterring Trump-supporting QAnon supporters from staying there in early March, on a day which some believed would see Trump restored to office.

The information, which police gleaned from a Business Insider version of a story published in Forbes on 6 February, was confirmed in an 8 February intelligence briefing stolen by ransomware hackers from Washington’s Metropolitan police department (MPD).

The hackers from the Babuk group subsequently published those documents online, and transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets redistributed them to news outlets including the Guardian.

As Forbes reported in February, Trump International hotel in Washington raised its rates to 180% of the normal seasonal charge for 3 and 4 March this year.

That was a date upon which some adherents to the QAnon conspiracy movement believed would see Trump once again sworn in as president, based on an interpretation of the US constitution influenced by a belief held by many “sovereign citizens” that the US government was secretly usurped by a foreign corporation in 1871, and all legal and constitutional changes since that date are illegitimate.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/22/trump-hotel-washington-qanon-conspiracy-theorists

[Kali]

1. to deter or just to grift more off them?

[global1]

2. Was It To Prevent Q Supporters From Booking A Room Or....

to fleece them of their $'s when they did book a room?

Knowing Trump - it was an easy way to make a buck.

[The Wielding Truth]

5. Trump beckonned them to come and knew they had been charged with a mission, so they

raised the prices. Higher demand/higher prices. Not to quell Q'ers but to increase profit. I think. $ $ $

[WyattKansas]

8. The only thing that disappointed tRUMP when Jan. 6th was happening was...

That his army of heathens appeared so low class and trashy.

[Takket]

3. No surprising

Drumpf hates his supporters as much as we do and knows they are a violent lot who don’t take any responsibility for anything, like paying a hotel bill.

[Passenger]

4. Qanon are supporters Trump did not ask for.

Any movement that is big enough might have some cringy fringe hangers on that make them look bad.

When it comes to Trump fans, it can easily look like they all are, but Qanon are the real deal.

[joetheman]

6. We all know how Trump really feels about them.

He doesn't want them at Mar-a-largo either

[blueinredohio]

7. He was not trying to deter anything

He knew they were stupid enough to pay his exorbitant prices.

[chowder66]

9. +1

[ProfessorGAC]

10. They Were Booked Lightly Those Days

It did defer reservations.
That hotel did that on the 1/6 and on inauguration day, too.
The T***p Organization is in such constant disarray that the local managers can do pretty much whatever they want.
Beside all that, what makes you think the spraytan moron knows anything about making money?

[Azathoth]

13. Are you sure?

Some of their actual staff seem to feel they had "record breaking numbers"

Link to tweet

?s=20

[ProfessorGAC]

14. Contradicts Their Occupancy Numbers...

...announced at the time. IIRC, around 60%, or 80 something % of normal for time of year. Somebody is lying, either way.
That looks like a PR tweet, to me.
And, I still insist in has nothing to do with grifting. That company's grift appears to be scamming for loans, not actually generating revenue & cash flow.
After all, look at who is in charge.
They LIED about a debt to equity of 1.16. (It's really closer to 4). The average of the commercial real estate industry is 0.7. So, they were bragging about a bad number, to disguise how much worse it was.
The victims of most of their grift have been banks. And, I have no sympathy for them.

[tanyev]

11. Dear Leader loves it when they trash the Capitol, but he doesn't want them on his property.

[Azathoth]

12. This sounds like something written by people with no experience in hotels

While it's true hotels will deliberately price themselves out of certain market segments to avoid dealing with certain types of guests, it's even more true that they will raise rates as high as possible on compression nights.

Tens of thousands of cultists in town and your hotel is their Graceland, named after the cult leader they worship? I'm surprised they only raised the rates 180%.

Sounds like "senior management" fed a tall tale to police officers who didn't know any better.