How One Couple Scored a Suite at the Waldorf for $15.75

A suite at New York City's famed Waldorf-Astoria for only $15.75?

That's how much Tony and Jo Fioravante of Staten Island, N.Y., paid on Jan. 12 to celebrate their 66th anniversary at the landmark luxury hotel - in a reprise, down to the dollar, of their 1948 wedding night.

As it turns out, the Waldorf gives couples who spent their wedding night at the hotel and who have been married for 50 years or more the same rate they originally paid, provided they still have the receipt  - which, fortunately, the Fioravantes kept all these years (along with one of the hotel's "Do Not Disturb" signs).

The Fioravantes' daughter, Sandra, remembered the receipt when her parents' 66th anniversary was approaching and got in touch with the hotel.

The Waldorf sweetened the deal by upgrading the Fioravantes into a $799-a-night Art Deco-style suite in The Towers - the exclusive boutique hotel-atop-a-hotel whose guests have included Cole Porter ("You're the top, you're a Waldorf Salad ..."), the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, William Randolph Hearst Jr., Douglas MacArthur, Bob Hope, Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra and every president since Herbert Hoover.

Here's the inimitable Fats Waller singing "Lounging at the Waldorf."

 

Images: The Waldorf-Astoria by Hennem08 via Wikimedia; inset photo courtesy of Tony and Jo Fioravante

 

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