J24 Hotel Milano — Hotel in Milan

Haven't stayed at the hotel, but highly doubt I'm going to be staying anyway. The key factor in such a highly competitive hospitality industry is customer service, and I dare say this is one of the worse I've ever experience (this is pre-stay and not during the stay itself, experience may differ).

Basically, given the rampant virus spreading, numerous Italians being quarantined as well as several Italy towns being locked down, my partner and I decided to inquire if we can obtain a refund for cancelling our booking, since we are postponing our Italy trip til all these havoc in the world dies down. We sent a good four paragraphs worth of pleasantries and reasoning on why it would be a good idea for both us and the hotel if they were to either 1. refund us in full or 2. no need to refund but postpone our trip by no later than 1 year.

First response we got was a rude 1 liner:

//quote// we are sorry but it is no possible to cancell without penalty, Please read the GENERAL TERMS & CONDITIONS that you signed before proceeding with the payment of the booking. //unquote//

Well that statement is true to a certain extent, and we certainly did not refute the above, hence we tried to ask for perhaps a one-off exceptional basis to perhaps just postpone by a short while given that we are giving them ample time to look for alternative guests. Their second response was letting us know that "management could consider request to move reservation in other dates. You need to send request of new dates BEFORE arrival date booked, after will be not possible".

Sure alright that sounds very reasonable, to which we got back with our preferred dates (bear in mind now is Feb, our booking is April which means we are way ahead of what they are proposing as stated in the preceding paragraph). Their next response? Exactly the same, but in double the font size "management could consider request to move reservation in other dates. You need to send request of new dates BEFORE arrival date booked, after will be not possible".

Not sure if I've mistaken anything, we politely enquired as to what the issue was since we are following in accordance to what they have asked for. Their third and final response? "management could consider request to move reservation in other dates. You need to send request of new dates BEFORE arrival date booked, after will be not possible" in TRIPLE THE FONT SIZE, probably at this point believing that my partner and I are idiots for not comprehending their question.

I'm still puzzled as to what may have triggered such response, but this is certainly no way to treat your guests (I certainly do not go by customer is always right rule, but this is bordering on ridiculing your guests now). If its all a cruel ploy to keep our money for our bookings then you may now dwell in your winnings now because we have given up on asking for it back as well as ever staying in your hotel in the near / far future, something which we will be letting other potential travelers be aware...

You need to know before booking

I never write reviews but after this stay I feel obligated to inform fellow travelers. BTW at my check out I informed the hotel crew that I will write this review.

Generally speaking, the hotel is cool, hip, modern…BUT…

We booked and pre-paid (due to short notice travel) a quadruple room and were happy to get an upgrade at late check in, but that’s when the nightmare started. One of the worst hotels we ever stayed in (and we travel a lot).

Dirty blankets and pillows, old grey ugly towels, a broken air condition, hotel staff who has never heard of how to treat customers and a hotel manager who avoids contact with customers. (Btw in a lot of reviews the hotel staff has been positively acknowledged; one of the reasons we booked the hotel…)

Due to the broken air conditioning we had 27,5 degrees Celsius (81.5 Fahrenheit) in our room and this for two nights…Impossible to sleep at night. Despite complaints at the reception even in the first night, the next morning, the next evening…no viable solution or any kind of compensation had been offered by the employees, despite we asked for it. They rolled their eyes when we asked for ice cubes from the bar to at least have a cold drink as also the fridge did not do its job. In all discussions, the hotel staff referred to the hotel manager but he could not be found nor reached by phone. Great job hiding and avoid dealing with customers. We are just disappointed!

We did not stop pushing for a solution and the staff made it finally happen that we got a new room for the 3rd and last night. (Btw, the hotel was not sold out during our entire stay; I asked the staff)

In addition, an American couple overheard my conversation at check out with a man who claimed to be the hotel manager. They seemingly had the same issues in their room.

At around 11am we checked out the man who claimed to be the hotel manager offered us a breakfast. On the last day, the minute we were about to leave to another place with running engine in front of the hotel…Feels really odd.

Most disturbing action by the hotel management is that they after we checked out, reported to Booking.com that we canceled the stay. Seems they tried to avoid that we can write a verified review on booking.com. This just underlines the management style in this hotel and how they treat customers. Never again.

Note from Booking.com „How’s it going? J24 Hotel Milano (booking number …) notified us that you didn’t check-in on…“ BTW, Booking.com contacted the...

We booked this hotel through Expedia for an overnight stay in Milan. Upon arrival we were advised we had been upgraded to a junior suite which we were initially pleased about. Although the room itself was clean and spacious, it was located opposite the lift so was very noisy. In addition to this the thermostat was stuck on 28 degrees and would not turn off so our room was unbearably hot!

When we came back from our evening out we realised that our “upgraded room” was sandwiched between a group of very loud young adults. Although we are advocates for people having good time whilst away on holiday it’s also important to be considerate of other guests. We went to bed around 11.30pm as we had a flight home the next morning. It got to 12.30am and the screaming and shouting did not stop so we decided to ring reception to ask if we could move rooms. The receptionist said no to us moving rooms but advised they would come and tell the group to keep the noise down of which they did. About half an hour later the group started to raise their voices and continued with the loud noise until around 4am of which the hotel did nothing. A combination of the extremely hot room, loud noise from neighbouring rooms and the noise from the lift it’s safe to say we had little/ no sleep. The next morning we checked out early as we had a flight to catch and we told reception that we did not have a good night due to the disruption despite asking if we could move rooms. The two staff behind the desk acknowledged this and just replied with ‘oh sorry about that”. We checked out and decided to email Expedia when we got home. To our surprise we had a response from Expedia saying “we rang the hotel and unfortunately they’re sticking with their policy and won’t issue a refund. They advised that you did not say anything to them, not even at check out also you had an upgrade in junior suite”. We are extremely disappointed that the hotel staff have lied to Expedia and have not taken any responsibility to ensure we had a comfortable and enjoyable stay. I also do not feel that our room was anything close to an “upgrade” and wish we had not accepted their offer at check in. Safe to say after this experience we will not be staying at this...