Austin Proper Hotel — Hotel in Austin

My partner and I got a Jr. King Suite at room 304 for NYE. It was a pricey room, but we wanted to pay a little more for space and luxury because it was also for our anniversary. My partner called ahead to mention this, asking if they offered any romantic touches for such occasions, such as the standard rose petals, or something special from the kitchen. The receptionist seemed confused, but she assured him we would be given a very nice room for the evening. When we arrived, we were informed the room may not be ready because the hotel was behind, despite the fact that check in was at 3 and we were showing up at 5. We went inside to confirm and thankfully it was ready, but it appeared that many people were waiting on their rooms. When we went back to our car to unload our luggage, we were informed that there were no luggage carts available. This was unfortunate, as we had brought quite a few bags to have a private celebration in our room. To the valet's credit, he was friendly and helped us carry our things up, but struggling up to our third floor room with arms full of bags calls to mind a roadside inn, not THE Austin Proper. So much for calling ahead for the assurance of a nice room. 304, across from the public restrooms, was a letdown. The room was advertised as having a full wall of 3 floor to ceiling windows, but only had two narrow windows granting a view of construction and port-o-potties. We called it a loss lowered the curtains, grateful at least that construction wasn't ongoing for the holiday. The room was advertised as a certain square footage, but what they don't tell you is a chunk of the length of that space is taken up by a large wardrobe that sticks out from the wall. It's a beautiful piece of furniture, but the room design didn't feel as efficient as it could be. We rented the room specifically for the square footage because we wanted to be able to dance, so it mattered to us, though we still managed. Some of the furniture was neatly designed, for instance the modern arm chair, but the rest was minimalist and indistinguishable to me from something from ikea. Maybe we wouldn't feel so harshly about this if it wasn't all so drab a color palette. We both agreed the high ceiling was a huge plus, because otherwise with all the brown, beige, and black, the room would feel like a cave. There was one little piece of art on the wall with a tiny bit of color in the form of cool string art, but it was comically small and hidden behind a large concrete pillar built into that wall to match the one between the narrow windows. Also, there was no reading lamp by the arm chair, though there was one pictured in the website of the Jr. Suite. I feel I can safely say of all the Jr. King Suites available, ours was not by far the nicest. On top of this, nothing was done in our room to balance these fallen expectations. It was just the bare minimum, which was below what the website photos suggested. The next day we discovered we had been given someone else's valet ticket, so when we came down carrying our luggage we had to wait for them to give us the correct car. After we left, I noticed I left some fairy lights in the room over the bed, and when I called to check, they noted no record of this. Good thing I didn't leave a piece of jewelry. We had a fabulous time together mostly by our own designs, and though we were thankful for the wooden floors for dancing, the large shower, the good smelling toiletries, and the smart tv, the rest didn't do us many favors. The touchpad system on the wall was cool, but luxury for me comes from the softness of sheets, engaging views, and the beauty of a well designed room. The room was inefficiently, dully designed, the sheets felt remarkably scratchy for such an expensive hotel, and again, port-o-potties out the window. It seems the theme at The Proper is just expensive-seeming ostentation, and an assemblage of quirky brown textures and patterns, but no real comfort...

UPDATE 1: I was contacted by Ryan, Regional Director of Sales. I gave him some times I was available to talk and he never responded.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: I have nothing bad to say about the quality of the property and the individual staff. But I want to send a sincere warning to anyone considering working with Group Sales at the Austin Proper. I was tasked with hosting 20 business partners in Austin for a one-night event in January 2025. I traveled to Austin six weeks out for a site visit, met with Ray in Group Sales, came up with a reasonable rate, and then signed a contract for 20 rooms for our event as well as a catered breakfast in a meeting space. Our guests were to book and pay for their own rooms, at our negotiated group rate. Three weeks prior to the event an unforeseen, unrelated, and unavoidable event forced our company to cancel. I hoped the Austin Proper would be reasonable over how to handle the cancellation. I suggested multiple times “just charge us 50% and then take the rooms back and resell them”. The Austin Proper was unwilling to do that. They continually pointed to the fine print of a very one-sided contract they had us sign, “customer pays 100% if cancelling within 30 days.” Despite my calm but firm protests, they offered no reasonable alternative options. The Austin Proper made my company pay 100% of the full charges for the rooms, and 100% of the catering charges for the breakfast, the full cost was $15,000. We weren’t even supposed to be covering the room fees for the original event, our guests were to pay for themselves. By cancelling 21 days out our company was forced to pay a massive bill, which devastated our 2025 budget in just the first month of the year.

I understand that it is my fault that I signed the contract with Group Sales. But the Austin Proper pointing to the fine print of a contract they wrote, and then “sticking it” to their customers who were simply were trying to do business with them, is unethical and won’t yield long term success. We would have been much better off asking our guests to book their rooms directly with the Austin Proper, instead of working with Group Sales. Then if my guests cancelled three weeks out, they would have owed nothing.

We tried to salvage at least some value out of this unfortunate scenario, but the Austin Proper made it difficult to even do that. After cancelling, they were going to add our room block back to their availability and even though we were paying full price. To keep the Austin Proper from “double dipping” by selling their product twice, we had to send employees there to stay in the rooms for no reason. We were forced to then send those employees to three-thousand-dollar breakfast that we had to pay for even though we did not need it. Not surprisingly we struggled to find takers to fill the rooms on a Wednesday night in January. When we did not have a full 20-person guest list submitted to the Proper a week out, they tried a second time to take the rooms back from us so they could resell them while still charging us full price for all of them. Our negotiated room rate was $410. We ultimately filled all 20 rooms, but it was a struggle on top of an already unpleasant scenario. To make matters worse the Austin Proper had such limited availability the night of our stay that they were selling the final remaining rooms (not from our block) for over $900 per night. If they had simply just charged us a 50% deposit fee and then resold the rooms for full price in the three weeks before the event, they would have made substantially more money, while also allowing my company a reasonable outcome. But the Austin Proper would not do that. As a result, I must share my honest feedback in this review and warn you as well as any of my peers in my industry, to never work with this hotel brand. Hopefully, I can keep someone from making the same mistake I made when I tried to work with the Austin Proper on an...

I am leaving this review as a Marriot Gold member that booked this stay through the Amex Fine Hotels and Resort program, in case this is relevant for any potential guests.

Upon arrival, valet was very congested and overwhelmed. Mostly from non-hotel guests that were coming to the hotel bar and restaurant, Goldie’s and Peacock. It’s not like at other luxury hotels, the doormen aren’t going to help you with your luggage into the lobby for check in, which is fine since I’m able to carry it myself but that was unimpressive as a luxury hotel.

The gentlemen at the check-in were nice and friendly, offered us water or champagne. He went over the Amex Fine Hotels and Resort benefits with me (this hotel offers $60 a day credit for daily breakfast in case any Amex members are curious; $100 hotel credit to be used at their restaurants but not spa). I asked if they had a room upgrade since it’s a benefit when available and was told no. Overall, an okay experience and we went to our room.

I booked a room with a balcony and it was on the 11th floor, their highest floor, for close to $700 a night for this room (almost $800 if you count the daily $59 parking fee if you drove in, and mandatory $35 hotel feel for who knows what).

Our room was nice with top-to-floor windows and a wrap-around balcony. There was fresh fruit, sparkling water, and a greeting card awaiting us, which I thought was a nice touch. The hotel texted my phone to welcome me and offered assistance for anything I needed, to just text the number.

Around midnight the thermostat turns off and says “offline”; I wasn’t really sure since I wasn’t familiar with their thermostat and figured maybe it will come back on later. I tried to go to sleep. Around 4:00 a.m. I woke up because it was so hot, only to notice the thermostat still said “offline” so I called the front desk — no answer. I tried calling guest services — no answer. Tried the front desk again — no answer. I texted the number that greeted me earlier — no reply. So at 4:00 a.m. I had to throw on a bathrobe and go all the way downstairs to the front desk only to find nobody was there. I opened the door front door and there happened to be a doorman to help me find someone.

They were not able to fix the AC so they offered to move us to a different room. It was not the same room with wrap-around balcony on a high floor like our original room, which was disappointing. So at 4:30 a.m. we moved to the new room and tried to get some rest.

Here is where things get weird…

I’ve stayed at many luxury hotels before and I know that after an event like this, the hotel manager would reach out to follow up, check if the new room was okay, etc. Nope, nothing. That’s fine, I go about my day.

At 5:30, over 12 hours after the incident, I get a text from the hotel manager, Giulio Perone, apologizing for “last night’s incident at the bar” and invites me “back to the bar” for free drinks. I was confused and asked if he meant the incident about the AC? So he goes along and basically says oh, yes, sorry for that and invites us to the hotel restaurant for dinner. I said okay, since we still had the $100 Amex hotel credit we needed go use.

We get to the restaurant and the manager says that appetizers and the first round of drinks are on him. Halfway through dinner, at 9:00 p.m. I get another text from someone named Anis Khoury saying he/she is the general manager and apologizes about the AC. At 9:00 p.m. when the incident happened at 4:00 a.m. and they had all day to reach out? It was so strange. I was appreciative, though, and thanked him/her and gave feedback. This person never replies but instead talks to the hotel manager, Giulio, who then texts me saying they will comp our dinner instead of just free drinks and appetizer. The whole thing felt cheap and insulting, as if I gave feedback in an attempt to get a free meal or something.

A very expensive inconvenience and...