I guess all the other reviewers paid full price for their room as walk ins off the street. Here is my little summary
So on Aug 5th we book through hotwire for 3 adults to Stay at the Holiday Inn near SF airport. With an online website you have to confirm the booking w/o knowing what hotel your getting. Once we knew what hotel we had gotten we saw a whole slew of complaints about how they treated thier customers since we got 'discounted rooms'.
One review i read said they didn't get the non smoking room they requested. This had me concerned so the same day I called to verify i was getting a room with 2 beds. If i was renting the room with two chicks it would have been fine but i didn't want to share a bed with my uncle and cousin. They assured me the room would have 2 beds in it.
So I fly up to SF on Aug 18th to meet my uncles flight from italy. Before their flight touched down. I called the hotel again to make sure we would get a double, non smoking room. The lady that answered said the hotel was busy and that we would be getting a single bed in a smoking room. I told her what i was promised and suddenly a double room opened up in a non smoking part of the hotel.
Good at least we would have that. My uncles flight arrives and we get on the hotel courtesy shuttle (rude driver) and arrive at the hotel. My cousin and uncle were jet lagged and since i used my card to pay i went and checked in. They tried to give me a King bed in a smoking room. I told them what they had promised me twice and he literally called me a liar.He said the hotel was full and all they guaranteed to their online customers was a room not the number of beds. 'Paying customers' got priority over the room choices. WTF I was paying $319 for 3 nights wasn't that a paying customer. Fourty minutes he is tapping keys on his keyboard. So im like can you at least put a roll away bed in there so are not all 3 in the same bed. I will look into that but cant even guarantee that (he messes around another 20). The manager comes out from the back and helps him and tells me online customers get no choice over the type of room blah blah and that the hotel is full.
I told him why did they even list their hotel with the website if they treat all those booking through there so badly. There was a slew of complaints about that hotel location from online customers. If there wasnt a disclaimer saying no cancellations and that you would be charged the full price even if you didnt decide to stay there we probably would have left and found someplace else. He just said it was hotwires fault blah blah blah. After another good 25 minutes he suddenly found a double for us. The room magically had appeared (how strange). Anyway exhausted we go upstairs. The main desk light isnt working and i go to try and draw the curtains. WTH theres a pair of ornamental curtains at the side and a seethrough net curtain, no curtains to close. I was too exhausted and didnt think we would get any help from them downstairs anyway.
Next morning the sun comes pouring through the window as soon as the sun came up and the room begins warming up. I look for an AC unit and cant find one in the room. Opening the window didnt help since the sound of aircraft taking off and landing could be heard. It was pointless complaining to management since i had to fight tooth and nail to even get 2 beds. We cant find someplace else since the 3 night booking is non refundable.
Oh and the internet desk across for the front desk was credit card payment of $5 for 20 mins. I am not entirely sure where the Free internet was. We tried 2 different creditcards that came up as invalid in their system (the cards were definately not invalid). The first time it took them 45 mins to get someone to help us and then they ended up logging us in with a hotel account and got a total of 2 mins internet time. The second time we gave up after waiting 15 mins.
So i am really angry about all this crap and not even getting a proper nights sleep there. When i got home on Aug 23 I call Intercontinental the group the franchises out the Holiday Inn locations. They give me a case number and tell me someone will be in contact with me in 5-7 days. On Sept 3rd no one has gotten back to me 9 days later. So i call them again and get some lame excuse that the email I am supposed to get has to go through some 'quality review process'. Email WTH i thought in that space of time I would be getting an actual letter not an email. I tell her that isnt good I was expecting some form of apology. She offered to write an apology to me . Yes i really care about some person from corporate answering the phones to email me an apology. I wanted one from the actual hotel at the very least. She then asks me what im expecting and offers me $40 worth of coupons. I can use them on overpriced meals or services at the hotel. Chances are they wouldnt be accepted since Holiday Inn didnt even like my discounted hotel reservation. I was so fed up I let her go and spent another day stewing over this issue.
I call them today and speak to some different person . I was hoping for like a supervisor (apparently they are all case managers answering the phone). She tells me the way i was treated was completely unacceptable and they would reforward their email to the hotel management at the location. I told her about all the negative reviews about that hotel location aswell. She told me 5 business days there would be a response and then changed it to 14 business days. I said is that 14 business days from today or from Aug 23rd when it was first promised to me. No she said from today. I then managed to get it out of her that i wouldnt ever get to see the response from the Hotel since these matters are dealt with 'internally' and that an apology would arrive with my vouchers from Corporate. Nothing would be coming from the SFO hotel location.