Extended Stay America Suites- Austin - Downtown - Town Lake — Hotel in Austin

Front desk’s mistake led to our belongings removed from the room and additional charge posted on credit card. My 3rd time staying with ESA, and an absolutely distressful experience. My boyfriend and I booked for 2 nights thru Bookings.com. Charge was $177.83. Checked in on the 1st day and stayed for night. Came back from a day trip on the 2nd day, key card didn’t open the side door. The front desk lady asked us for the room number and reprogrammed the card. Got into the room, and found the TV playing sports channel and some clothes and luggage surprisingly unfamiliar to us. Front desk lady said the system didn’t show our check-in record. However, the scan of my DL showed up on the room record. She claimed that someone must have made a mistake and that the housekeeper removed 2 bags of stuffs from the room. After multiple phone calls she got in touch with the manager, and after some more calls she reserved another room for our 2nd night, and gave us new key cards. Then we checked if our belongings were still intact. She led us into the back office to two trash bags of stuffs on the floor. My boyfriend told her that we will check the items there, and that if we find anything missing, we will call the police. Fortunately our laptops and electronics were there. As we proceeded to the other stuffs in the bag, she said we cannot check our stuffs in the office because her kids are here. My boyfriend didn’t understand what she meant and went on undoing the knots. Then she said “sir you cannot be here, I’m calling the police myself”… We don’t understand why it’s not okay to check our belongings inside their office. My boyfriend asked if he could just step out of the office and do it on the hallway and insisted that she stood there to witness; she said it’s fine. Just imagine how it looks like with 2 guests counting their belongings, all laid out on the lobby floor…. Anyway, we moved all our stuffs to the newly assigned room and went out for dinner. One of key card didn’t work again when we came back. That stunned us a bit thinking that perhaps we had to move again. Thought we could finally relax; found that the wifi never let us log in. Called to the front desk and no one answered. We just went straight to sleep. We thought the ordeal was all over and checked out the next morning. No, it wasn’t. As we returned the key cards to another front desk lady, we were told that we were not checked in to the room that we stayed for the 2nd night. We explained the situation to her but the answer was frustratingly consistent: “we have your reservation for 2 nights but the system didn’t show you checked in; the room that you just stayed didn’t show your name either”. I opened my credit card account and found 2 transactions under ESA: the 1st one posted on the 1st day with the exact amount $177.83 we booked with Bookings.com; the 2nd one also under ESA posted on the 2nd day with the amount of $157.94. We have no idea about the 2nd transaction. The lady couldn’t reach her coworkers nor her manager. She said that she checked out the 1st room that we stayed, but the room was under a different person’s name, who only booked for 1 night. That’s why our stuffs were removed from the room. We asked her to verify everything we said by pulling out the surveillance video recordings. She let us walk away after writing down the details and asked us to call them after the long weekend. It was not our mistake and it’s been a distress to us, and we had to reach out to them for an answer? The mysterious 2nd transaction posted on my credit card was either a no-show fee or the charge for the 2nd room we were assigned; we are yet to find out… Miscommunication between staffs caused one mistake to trickle down to the next shift. When a mistake was identified, shouldn’t it be rectified right away and be extra cautious with the guests that were wronged? The way that we were treated was completely disrespectful and a...

I will let my letter to the management speak for itself

Dear Extended Stay Management,

I am an emergency manager deployed to Austin building facilities to help the survivors of hurricane Harvey. For the last month I have been residing at your location at 507 S 1st Street, Austin, TX 78704. The early staff and late staff probably recognize me coming in from my 12 hour days. The staff also might know me as a friendly guy who always comes by to get cash for the housekeeper on cleaning day.

Unfortunately working these hours leaves precious little time for housekeeping so I will admit to my room getting cluttered. For instance there are a few boxes from Costco from when I bough a large team of emergency responders refreshments to keep morale up. However I have to admit I am mortified right now. I returned home from yet another 12 hour day helping survivors to a letter accusing me of creating unsafe conditions (see attached). As someone who has a career in mitigating hazards, to be accused of creating a health hazard is beyond my belief. However, I have heard it said that perception is reality. As such I will accept your opinion and be checking out of your location first thing in the morning.

Given that you have brought up the hazards on your property and required me to formally respond to management I feel it is now my duty to follow up on a few topics. I expect you will take them just as seriously.

Robbery - As I have stayed at your property for some time I had a package sent to me. Upon another late arrival home I had a letter on the door asking me to speak with the front desk. The front desk stated that a man leaped over the counter, opened my belongings, and rummaged through them. This should have been a red flag about this property. I have seen no increase in security as result and the front desk is still frequently unattended.

Drug Use - Almost nightly there are residents of this hotel milling about the parking lot using various drugs. The smell of marijuana more often than not permeates the hotel. I have witnessed no efforts to curb this in the month I have been here.

Public Intoxication - Again, nightly there are people who are sitting throughout the parking lot openly drinking and partying. I have been woken by their noise more than once.

Overcapacity of Rooms - I am concerned that the parking lot party situation is the result of rooms being rented over capacity to migrant laborers. It seems there are groups which are hoarded together and therefor prefer the open air of the parking lot to their crowded rooms for their evening parties.

Faulty Electricity - The electricity in my room has required management to check breakers as outlets and light fixtures in the kitchen have gone out.

Broken Plumbing - The handle on the sink in the kitchen fell off the first week.

All of these, with the exception of the electricity, I have not raised even a murmur of discontent over. Mainly because I have been too focused on my job and helping those in your state that need it most. Tomorrow, however, I will be focused on finding new lodging. Then I will focus on ensuring the appropriate authorities are notified to deal with the real safety concerns at this establishment. Is ICE aware of the housing situation you seem to enable? Are the Austin Police and DEA aware of the state in which you allow your property to be used for drug use and public intoxication? Are local building inspectors aware of of plumbing and electrical safety issues?

I have complied with your letter, which your staff somehow managed to leave unsigned, by finding other accommodations. Similarly I would ask that you reply with your planned remediation action for issues I have enumerated above within...

Howdy! I stayed at this hotel in the first week of January, 2025 for about 4-5 days. I had room 343, located at the end of the hallway on the 3rd floor near a window that overlooks the parking lot.

So I thought what I would do is write a review in the Plus / Delta format -- with Plus meaning positive things and Delta meaning things that could or should be considered for change.

PLUS+ So the hotel has an excellent location, located just about a 10 minute walk from downtown Austin and many cool restaurants. There is a Whataburger right across the street and Terri Black's BBQ is also just a few blocks away.

There is ample parking available and I felt that the staff were all either polite or professional or both. There is a young lady who works as a security guard here and does an excellent job patrolling the parking lot and the interior of the building also. I didn't catch her name, but she was 100% diligent and professional.

I also really liked the laundry room because you could download an app and pay for your washer/dryer digitally, negating the need to go on a prolonged scavenger hunt for a roll of quarters. (Lol)

The room itself was spacious and I really appreciated the fact that you can open the window a few inches to get fresh air in. Nice large screen TV and comfortable desk to work at.

DELTA -- so there is a semi-pungent odor inside the hotel that is difficult to ignore.

The lock on my room (#343) was not secure and I felt like it could have been easily compromised by anyone with nefarious intent. This really bothered me.

The room itself was a little grungy - many stains on the carpet, food stains on the top of the fridge and just an overall sense that the cleaning was extremely sub-par. I also think that some of the bedding, curtains, etc. may be a bit overdue for replacement.

My thought is simply that the building itself needs an extreme makeover. May I share a few thoughts/ideas here for management? These are just friendly suggestions - not meant to be unkind or condescending in any way.

OUTSIDE - it may be a good idea to pressure wash the exterior of the building, wash the windows and possibly put a fresh coat of line striping down in the parking areas. This would help I think with the overall appearance.

INSIDE - my guess is that the noticable odor in this building probably comes from the old carpet. If possible, it might be worthwhile to remove the hallway carpet from all three floors and install hardwood flooring. Also, a fresh paint job in all three hallways would help brighten the interior ambiance.

I think it may help to do something like a 50 point inspection of each room to see what needs to be fixed or upgraded. It may be that this has already been done in some remodeled rooms, but for those where it hasn't it might really help.

Also as a friendly suggestion, including indoor plants and paintings/professional murals on the walls might also help deplete the worn down feeling here inside the building.

If the front desk could put together a 1-2 page information sheet about the hotel with check out times, cleaning schedule, site map, etc -- this may be really helpful for guests as well.

Probably like most hotels it has its positives and negatives. If some of the above suggestions could be incorporated my sense is that occupancy would go way up as would the overall rating of the hotel.

Again, the staff were very polite/professional and the security guard was outstanding - she was so diligent and professional it was impossible not to notice.

These are just a few of my thoughts about my stay here - again not meant to be unkind or hyper-critical, just genuine observations from my week...