Once, if a hotel wanted to make you feel special, they did so with a time-honoured cocktail of flowers, chocolates and a bottle of sparkling wine. These days it's all about embroidery... or to be more specific, monograms.

Notch up 50 visits to the Four Seasons in Atlanta, for instance, and you will be presented with a monogrammed bathrobe. Your 75th stay will be marked by a silver computer mouse engraved with your initials. Your 100th stay, meanwhile, will result in a monogrammed pillowcase which you can either take home or leave so it can be there to greet you on your next visit.

The Gansevoort hotel in New York also treats favoured guests - make that obscenely rich and well-known types who could probably afford to buy multiple robes - to more monograms, as does the Berkeley in London and the St Regis in San Francisco. I don't know how I feel about this trend. Easier to stash in your luggage and less likely to cause tooth decay, but irritatingly hard to fob off on family and friends.