This was by far the worst experience I have ever had at a hotel (of any brand). My family and I made (and paid for) our reservations in advance. However, when we arrived, the front desk clerk informed us there were no rooms available. She admitted it was her error. My wife, who previously worked in the hotel industry for many years in human resources, suggested they "walk" us to another hotel since it was their error. However, the front desk clerk said she had never heard of this term before and did not know what to do. (To provide context, we had driven more than 5 hours and were exhausted when we arrived. My 82-year-old mother, who was traveling with us, was very stressed out about this situation as we had to wait in the hotel lobby for hours. The hotel clerk, who had been left to work the shift alone, was scrambling around. It was chaos. Management should have never left this clerk alone during the busy Memorial Day weekend. That is a clear sign of the poor management of this hotel property.) After sitting in the hotel lobby for several hours, we were finally provided one room. The front desk clerk, who was working alone, did not have a second room for us. She stated that there was a vacant room, but it would need to be "deep cleaned" because a medical emergency had happened in that room earlier that night. The room next door was available because the person who had checked in only stayed a few hours then left. However, that room was not clean, and housekeeping had already left for the day, so she (the front desk clerk) would have to try to clean the room herself. When we were finally given access to the room (hours later), we discovered it had not been properly cleaned, and the bed-sheets were in disarray. The next morning, the manager apologized and acknowledged that it was her fault for taking off work that day and leaving the front desk clerk alone at the hotel. The manager also stated that we would receive a full refund for both rooms since what had happened was the hotel’s responsibility and it was not acceptable that we had to go through that, and she would check with the general manager to add additional Hilton Honors points to our account (in addition to the full refund). We left the hotel, believing the issue had been resolved, but later, we received a phone call, in which the manager we had met with during checkout stated that she had tried but was unable to give us a refund because we had prepaid for the room (I guess the lesson is, you should never prepay for your stay. Otherwise, the hotel will try to deny a refund, even if they overbook the hotel, which is their fault, not the fault of the guest). The manager said, instead, they would give us enough points for one night’s stay for one room only. This is not what we were promised when we originally met with the manager during check out. Even after admitting that she had attempted to get us a full refund, she later denied ever offering us a refund at all. Not only did this property management team drop the ball, they added insult to injury by refusing to honor the offer we were given at checkout. The manager knows the truth of what was promised, and so do we. She can deny and deny, but the truth is the truth. This situation could have been handled in a satisfactory way, and it initially was, but by refusing to honor what was originally offered is dishonorable. Instead of Hilton Honors, I will now call the program Hilton Dishonors, based on my experience and how dishonorably Hilton treated us. I strongly advise that you avoid this property, and based on how Hilton handled the situation, I would advise avoiding the Hilton brand entirely.
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