Went to Austin with a group of 5 friends to celebrate the birthday of one our friends and my birthday. Had read through the reviews of this hotel and decided the good reviews outweighed the bad ones and would take a chance. We were not looking for anything fancy but at least wanted the room to be clean and have everything in good working order. Upon arrival the hotel, a term I use loosely as this is an obvious motel, had a sign posted stating they had no hot water. I immediately questioned this and was assured by the clerk checking us in that my two rooms had hot water. I had booked the rooms through Hotwire about 3 weeks prior. I had a hard time finding a room and learned later it was due to there being a UT home game that weekend. Most every hotel was booked for Friday night. It was about 10 PM when we checked in as we had driven down from Dallas. Once making it to the room I turned on the water to let it run as I had been instructed by the clerk. They said it would need to run a while before it would get hot. After 15 minutes of running the water was still ice cold. I called down to the front desk and was told to let it run some more and it would get hot. After the water ran for an hour in both rooms it was still not hot. In addition to the hot water there are some household issues that need to be touched on. None of them make the rooms uninhabitable but when you are paying to stay somewhere you expect certain things. It was obvious the only things the maids do are change the sheets and possibly vacuum the floors because there is a lot of mold in the showers and most everything had a layer of dust on it. The beds are at least clean it not the most comfortable. One of our rooms had dead bugs lying under the bathroom sink.
The real kicker with this hotel is the horrible customer service on the part of the employees and the General Manager. I have never been treated so poorly by someone when I voiced a legitimate complaint regarding the service I was receiving at their business. Not once did anybody apologize for the hot water issue and the GM even questioned why I was staying there. I asked for his manager's contact info so I could lodge a complaint but was refused this information by the GM. He said all complaints stop at him. This is totally unacceptable as all businesses should have a way for customers to be able to voice their concerns when there are issues with the product or service they are paying for. I was told they would let me cancel my second night but the most they would give me for the first night was a 20% discount. I requested something from them to confirm they were not charging me for the second night and would discount the first night, even though I feel it should have been comped, but this was also refused by the GM. Without anything documenting the conversation they could do whatever they wanted with the billing and never issue the credit back to my card. I eventually received the credit for the second night charge but this was only after calling Hotwire. I am still waiting for the 20% credit from the first night. Hotwire had to do an investigation into this because the hotel never submitted anything to them regarding the credit.
If you are thinking about this hotel read through all of the reviews and pay special attention to the reviews that are bad and how the GM responds to them. In several bad reviews he blatantly calls the reviewer a liar or writes he thinks it is a bogus review. Stay here only if you have no other choice and expect to be treated poorly if you do have any issues and voice a valid complaint.
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