There are few perks left in travel. But fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies may be one.  DoubleTree Hotels got into the cookie business in the early 1980s. Its explanation is printed on the brown paper bag the cookie comes in. “Why a cookie?” the headline asks. “Cookies are warm, personal and inviting, much like our hotels and the staff here that serves you.”  DoubleTree provides a warm, generous-size cookie (each one weighs more than two ounces) to guests when they check in, regardless of the hour. “Our guarantee is to ensure that they have them waiting for our guests on arrival 24 hours a day,” said Thomas Wingham, a Doubletree spokesman.  Midwest Airlines got into the cookie-baking business in the mid-1980s. The airline tells the story to passengers in MyMidwest, its in-flight magazine. In 1986, an airline employee was testing snack foods that could be baked in a plane’s ovens. Popcorn and pizza rolls did not come out well.  But when the employee baked chocolate chip cookies, the odor drew the flight crew out of the cabin (this was pre-9/11, of course) to ask what smelled so good, and the test results were in. Midwest’s cookies weigh about half as much as DoubleTree’s, but each passenger receives two.  For Todd McLean, who was checking in at a DoubleTree in Times Square, one cookie was probably enough, although, he joked, “Then, I need a glass of milk.”  Sam Grabush, the hotel’s general manager, said that arriving guests fell into two groups  “people who take a bite immediately, and others who eat them as soon as they get to the room.”  How could he be sure the second group acted so swiftly? Because most guests are attracted to views from the windows in the 46-story building as soon as they get to their rooms, he said, and “they all leave chocolate fingerprints” on the curtains.  James Reichart, Midwest’s director of advertising and brand, is one of the few Midwest employees who remember when the airline started serving cookies. “What I remember most of all,” he said, “was people talking about the aroma. In a closed space like an aircraft cabin, to have something as unexpected as the smell of baking cookies was a real delight for everybody aboard.”  There was never any market research or focus groups about the cookies, Mr. Reichart said, “just the informal testing.”  But Midwest and DoubleTree are clearly on to something.  Erich Joachimsthaler, chief executive of Vivaldi Partners, a consulting firm on brands, said that “when consumers don’t know how to judge the benefits or the differentiation of a product  I don’t know the difference between Midwest and JetBlue and United  then a meaningless attribute like cookies can create meaningful differentiation.”  In a nod to the adage about starting the day with a good breakfast, Midwest does not offer cookies on flights that leave before 10 a.m., though one passenger on a 7:10 a.m. flight out of La Guardia wrote on her blog: “Note to Midwest Airline CEO: It is NEVER too early for cookies. Cookies are an important part of a healthy breakfast.”  And while the benefits to cookie lovers are obvious, the providers probably get their money’s worth, Mr. Joachimsthaler said. The giveaway “creates buzz, it creates differentiation, it increases a purchase decision,” he said.  Although DoubleTree’s cookies are served on the ground and Midwest’s in the air, there are similarities. Both start with frozen cookie dough, made to their particular specifications.  DoubleTree’s cookies are baked several times a day in the kitchen of the hotels’ restaurants, and are kept warm in ovens built into the hotels’ front desks  each oven is about the size of a two-drawer lateral file cabinet.  Midwest does not have to worry about keeping its cookies warm, because after they are partly baked on the ground, they are cooked in the planes’ ovens and served immediately.  “I like it a lot,” Stephan Spencer of Madison, Wis., said of the airborne treats as he left a Midwest flight at La Guardia. “They’re right out of the oven.”  Another Midwest passenger, Maciej Jasinski of Pewaukee, Wis., was more succinct. “It’s good,” he said, adding that he sometimes buys the frozen cookie dough that Midwest sells at some supermarkets in Milwaukee and Kansas City, the airline’s hubs.  DoubleTree sells tins of its cookies online, at www.doubletreecookies.com.  DoubleTree says it serves more than 10 million cookies a year at its more than 200 hotels; Midwest, nearly 10 million.  None of the two companies’ rivals have tried to copy the cookie giveaways. “Everybody in our business knows that the cookie belongs to Midwest Airlines,” Mr. Reichart said. Among hotels, Mr. Wingham said, DoubleTree has “owned this unique amenity for the past 20 years.” Mr. Grabush, the Times Square DoubleTree manager, called it “the signature, the brand.”  Because Midwest’s cookies are served aloft, a side-by-side comparison of just-out-of-the oven ones by a panel of expert tasters is impossible.  Winter Raymond, a front desk agent at the DoubleTree Guest Suites in Boston, who has flown Midwest, says that DoubleTree’s are better, but, of course, she is biased.  A very unscientific taste test, by a panel of one, produced no clear winner, because the cookies are so different. The DoubleTree cookie is huge, which makes it moister inside. The primary ingredient is Ghirardelli chocolate chips. Walnuts are third, right after the flour. Midwest’s cookies, in which the chocolate chips are the third ingredient, are thinner, and thus a little crisper.  Capt. Chris Stork, who flies a Midwest Embraer 170, said the unscientific test was flawed because the Midwest cookie was eaten on the ground. “It’s not the same experience,” he said, with an almost straight face, “because you’re at the earth’s pressure.”
DoubleTree Hotels and Midwest Airlines serve up chocolate chip cookies, a sweet reminder that they’re different from other brands.