I stay in hotels well over 100 nights per year. Diamond at IHG, Hilton Honors, Explorist with Hyatt. Usually for business. Traveled to ABQ from Colorado for business. First of the year, trying to cut back on travel costs. So picked this location (in a pretty sketchy area btw). I saw pretty quick why the rate was so good. Arrived around 4:45pm on a Monday.. guy at the desk was nice enough.. but they put a hold on my card for $75 extra (more than the actual room rate!) which I wasn’t aware of until after getting there. I got on the phone with my boss… he was checking to see if I made it safely. I told him the hotel was a bit sketchy.. he asked where it was, I said “Juan Tabo & I-40”. Her immediate response was “ooof I don’t think that’s a very safe area, why didn’t you stay at the Hyatt Place Uptown or Holiday Inn Express close by?” I said it was first of year and saw an email that we should try to cut back on travel costs (being a good soldier). He said “well sure, but not cut back so much that you’re in a place like that”. The room itself wasn’t that bad. I’ve stayed at worse. Did see some questionable clientele around the property & nearby. It was a basic Quality Inn. For a decent price. It was when I was needing to extend my stay that things tanked. Around 11:00am, checkout time, I noticed my card wouldn’t have enough to probably cover the second night, especially if they did ANOTHER $75 hold. So I called the hotel (I was at work) and let them know I’d be there in a little while to take care of the 2nd night’s stay. No problem, I was told. I arrived back at the room around noon, for lunch.. since I had to make sure I’d have enough on the card on file to cover the second night, I went ahead and did a a transfer between bank accounts. Typically takes 45 minutes or so. A few mins later, I get a loud, long knock at the door. Not sure if it was the manager or not…. But she was pretty rude. Doing business with the public for over 20 years, it takes a lot to get me to push back on anyone. She said they needed payment. I said I’d be down there in a bit. “Well it’s already after 12” (Most Choice Hotels give you a 2pm checkout if you’re a Choice Member). About 20 mins later, a phone call. “I need you to come down right now”. Mind you, it hadn’t even been 90 mins since regular checkout. I told her I’d be down as soon as I could. Could be as little as 5 mins. “OK you have five mins”. By this time, I was getting pretty fed up.. and began packing up in case they kept being rude. I even called the front desk a few mins later and told them I’d be down in ten minutes. Just as the transfer showed it’d completed and they could run that card again, i get another knock. It’s the same woman… I politely said hi.. she said “if you can’t get down to pay for this second night, I need you to leave.” That was the very last straw. I told her that I was leaving. Not because of payment, since I was just leaving to go down on my way back to work, but because of her rudeness. I also said that I would make sure nobody from my company (a major chain) would patronize their location. She didn’t care, of course. She stood there and actually waited while I loaded up a cart. I said that I’d never had been treated this way in all my years in hotels… “well sorry” is pretty much what she said. Anytime I’ve needed to stay another day, and I need to have them use another card for it or need to go in and actually be present to take care of it, I’ve never had issues with any other hotel.. whether it be Marriott, IHG, Hyatt, Hilton, and Choice, they’ve told me to take my time and I could come by after work or whatever. Never have I been told I need to leave a hotel (especially 85 minutes after checkout and they know I’m coming down imminently). I’m sure I could’ve stayed since I was just leaving to take care of it, on my way back to work. But after that kind of behavior, I’m not giving any more money to a property like that. What happened to taking classes on “hospitality management”? I realize this location was a sketchy area and they may want to be careful and be diligent. I’m sure they’ve had certain guests that try to delay and delay as long as possible so they don’t have to leave (never understood why, they’re delaying the inevitable) But this wasn’t that. I obviously wasn’t going to try and “put one over on them” when I’d kept the front desk updated on what was going on. Plus I was wearing my company nametag. Yeah I’m sure someone from a major company in on business is going to try and avoid paying 😒 I called my boss as I was loading up my stuff (with the same person just standing and watching creepily!) about what had transpired. He was shocked… told me to always go to Holiday Inn Express, Hyatt Place or Hampton… My boss asked me to get this woman’s name. I asked, she said Allie Sosa. My supervisor told me he was going to call the property and inform them that they lost any future business from the company (not that many stay here, I’m probably the first and only lol) and he said he was going to call Choice Hotels main office, too. I don’t expect anything at all to change here. This is the culture here. Nothing will happen to this property from Choice. And this woman will not even get a talking to about guest service, either. I don’t want her to get fired. I never want to get anyone fired. But she needs additional training. I know these Choice locations can be owned by different franchisees.. and she pretty much put the blame on that.. so things seem to be based on ownership of the specific location, and I’d say this one is one of the “bad eggs” of the chain. Lots of potential… housekeeping was as kind as could be. Don’t know if everyone at the desk is like this (the check-in guy wasn’t).. but this one lady (Allie Sosa) really needs to undergo some actual training in hospitality management.…
This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of Tripadvisor LLC.