I stayed here for one night with a friend on a really good Hotwire rate. We are locals, but were having a night out and decided to stay in the area. My reservation was booked last-minute, and I arrived at around 9pm (a few hours after booking).
The major problem was with the person checking us in. I'm not mean enough to post his first name here. He was unapologetically rude and didn't pay much attention to what he was doing, kept asking me questions he had already asked, etc. First, he couldn't find our reservation (which I can't fault him for, because I found out later that a bunch of Hotwire reservations had an issue that day). He seemed positive that I had booked it under some other fictional last name that I do not have, despite me showing him the confirmation with my correct last name on it.
So he decided to just authorize my credit card at the regular room rate and I would have to deal with it in the morning. Whatever, I had no choice. But while he was trying to find the reservation, I asked if I could help him by providing the confirmation email from Hotwire because it had a couple of different confirmation numbers, one for Hotwire and another that was unidentified. While I figured the second number was also Hotwire-related and not the official confirmation number for Sutton Place, it didn't hurt to ask (and because he was kind of treating me like a liar at this point). In response, he literally said, "That doesn't help me at all." A polite, nice person could have said this in a perfectly inoffensive manner. He said it flat-out rudely. I actually laughed a little in disbelief because it was all pretty funny at this point. Then he messed up when he was making my new reservation because he typed in my middle name instead of my last name when reading my driver's license (even though I had told him my last name a few times at this point) and acted like it was a big hassle to do it over again. Again, with a nice person it would have been funny and understandable. With this guy, it was irritating.
So he gave us a room, and given that were clearly two platonic girlfriends having a night out, I didn't even think to ask about the type of room we were getting. He didn't ask or tell us anything about it (e.g., "We only have king rooms available this evening" would have been pleasant). We laughed hysterically when we saw one king bed in the very nice-looking room, because of course that's what he would give us. We considered calling and asking if a double room was available, but decided it was NOT worth talking to him again (plus, we were Hotwire peons, right?). He literally put us in a bad mood. Luckily we went back out and had a good time. This hotel is in a great location, obviously. Tons of restaurants and bars steps away.
We barely spent any time in the room except to sleep, but it was really nice. Loved the decor, LOVED the bathroom. No complaints. I don't like when the air-conditioning keeps turning off and on to keep the temperature stable because I'm a light sleeper, but no big deal.
The check-out process wasn't that much better. Of course, the hotel had slipped a bill for the regular hotel rate under our door, so I had to go explain that I was on a prepaid Hotwire reservation that they weren't able to find when I checked in. When I got there, it seemed that the person in front of me had the same problem. I was told by the staff member at the front desk "We're fixing them all now. You won't be charged." End of discussion; completely blown off. They didn't even bring up my name on the computer or anything, they just asked for it and then did nothing. So now I have to trust that my credit card will not, in fact, be charged as the bill indicates it will be. I was given no zero-balance receipt or anything to that effect.
Not a smooth ride.
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