The Chicago Hotel Collection Magnificent Mile Hotel & Suites — Hotel in Chicago

Like most other people that stayed here we were initially deceived by 3rd party sites not properly listing the "amenity" fees until after booking and were screwed by both the 3rd party AND the hotel regarding the matter. The fee is listed on their direct website but they make it difficult to locate which I think is deceptive as well. They should just add the fee into your nightly room rate and end the frustration for people. It's easier that way it would save so many people from being upset.

The front desk lady was agitated and argumentative with everyone in the lobby and the manager who reeked of cigarette smoke was full of artificial sympathy, repetitive canned answers, and no help whatsoever in the conflict resolution department to us or anyone. How these people work in "hospitality" I'll never know as this was the most inhospitable experience I've ever had at a hotel.

I've never felt like a burden staying in hotel until this place.

The room was awful. Our city "view" was a 24hr. Hospital parking garage with blaring lights at all hours. Extremely uncomfortable firm beds, lumpy flat pillows and a comforter that was so thin I thought it was just a sheet. We asked for an extra blanket and was met with a front desk agent that seemed inconvenienced we asked for anything at all & yet couldn't get one til her housekeeping people arrived after 10am... the extra blanket received was a thin knit type blanket that didn't do much for extra warmth either so needless to say their linens were lackluster.

There is no coffee maker, no microwave & only a tiny fridge on the floor of the small room. We had 1 rolling chair. No one told us where the ice machine was located, light in the shower worked 1/2 the time & our 2nd day there our hot water became Luke warm water. We asked the desk about it and they said they'd look into it. After their " water engineer " as they called them supposedly looked at it we were told "that's just the way it is as its an 'accesible room' " which didn't make any sense at all as we DID have hot water, then we DIDN'T so that didn't seem like a valid reason at all... so either no one looked at it or they just didn't care. They eventually offered to move us to a new room but we had 1 night left at that point of resolving the issue which took 1.5 days and didn't want to be put in a worse spot as our luck with this place was terrible by this point and there was no guarantee our water would be hot in the new room either so we stayed put. We just wanted out of that hotel.

Housekeeping only comes every 4th day of your stay which is not helpful or 4 star worthy as the trash cans are tiny and fill quickly with the complimentary daily water bottles and other trash you might accumulate so it piled up fast. It was incredibly inconvenient. We ended up using a paper bag from whole foods since the trash cans are so small. Ask for extra garbage bags and maybe toilet paper on check in or you'll be sorry you didn't.

What does your $50 a day per room amenity fee pay for you ask?

You get "access " to their coffee bar which Is just a counter full of keurigs, coffee pods, and coffeemate creamer, oh there is also one tiny microwave you can use. What a value! The gym is a joke if you work out. You do get a bag full of water bottles each day, but dont forget to ask for them, those 6 bottles are the only thing of use. That's it. Oh there some advertising for un-useful restaurant.com gift cards or city pass discounts or something but we never received any information directly from staff of any additional benefits of any kind.

Their website shows breakfast and a bar? Neither which of those things were open or available during our entire stay, we weren't even aware of these until we got home and checked the website again.

The only thing that made this place "4 stars" was the location and the price you pay for a room (yet that price is awful for everything you receive or rather don't receive in exchange) everything else was 1.5 star value.

They need to Google what 4 star means and reevaluate their...

I’ll start by mirroring what every other review has said…we booked through Priceline. I don’t know if it’s Priceline or the hotel that has the error (or both), but additional fees were not disclosed prior to booking. We would not have known about the additional fees if it were not for all of these reviews, but by then it was too late to cancel. The “resort fee” of $49.95/night was disclosed - we were fine with that. What was NOT disclosed was the “Reservation Processing Recovery” of $56.78 + the 16% fee (that was 16% of the prepaid booking AND the $58.64 “amenity” tax). It is incredibly misleading. Yes, the mngmt will reply that you knew about it prior to booking (we never received any type of email that gives any indication that there would be extra expenses), but on the third party sites, as well as the confirmation emails w/ the price breakdown after booking, there is no mention of this. You also have a $125 hold on your card for incidentals that is returned within 2-5 business days. EDIT TO CHC RESPONSE: that woman was NOT on my booking & I have no idea who that is. Stop sharing guest information.

Now on to the hotel. Another trend is that mngmt likes to respond about benefits package that NEVER EXPIRES & can be used all over the US. Some discounts, maybe a gift card, free wifi, early check in/late check out (kind of), “boutique coffee bar,” their gym, & being pet friendly. Go to a Chicago Tourism location & you’ll close to the same thing. If you’re not here as a tourist, the benefits package is even worse than it is at baseline.

The “boutique coffee bar” is a joke. The bar that is downstairs in the lobby is not open & I’m unsure if their rooftop bar is open (the rooftop seating area is, though). Their free coffee is a collection of four basic Keurig machines. Depending on the time of day, you will be lucky to have water in them. One machine just didn’t work at all while there. Keurig coffee tastes so much worse than brewed coffee in a big carafe - why waste so much w/ the pods & having the need to refill water after 3-4 coffees made (or have your guests combine half empty water canisters)?

You do get one bag per night that will include 6 bottles of water or three bottles of water + 1 pepsi, 1 diet pepsi, 1 sprite. I don’t know what else they’re trying to charge $50 for amenties/resort fees, but it’s not worth whatever they’re trying to disguise it as.

The rooms were fine. Really no complaints with the rooms. Comfortable enough beds, spacious, standard. The elevators were so incredibly slow, though. The front desk staff were lovely - I’m sure they get upset guests all of the time about these hidden fees. The hotel will hold on to your luggage before check in & after check out if needed (surprisingly at no additional charge). We didn’t bother bringing the unhappiness about the fees up to the desk staff - it’s not their fault. We took it up w/ Priceline & now the hotel. We’ll try to get the difference in what we were told would be the price versus the additional ridiculous charges by CHC reimbursed by Priceline. Location is fine if you want to be downtown - easily walkable.

Overall, if they were upfront about what their charges were or actually had a benefits package (please don’t reply that it NEVER EXPIRES…I don’t care) that was appealing to guests & tangible…sure, I’d recommend this hotel. Unfortunately, it’s not worth whatever smoke & mirrors they’re trying to pull to reel you in & stick you w/ extra fees (stop responding with copy/pasted confirmation emails; it’s in poor taste & looks bad on management). When there are that many reviews that say the same thing, it’s a you problem not a customer problem. One star for the front desk staff that have to deal with management’s poor ability to manage & one star because we had no issues with the room itself.

Lastly, to the CHC - why send a check out text asking how to improve our stay? Based on these reviews & your aggressive responses, you obviously don’t care. If you’re going to be something, own it. Stop pretending to care about what your...

I will start by saying we definitely overall enjoyed our time in Chicago and loved the central location of our hotel. We also really enjoyed that there was always coffee available to us! I am writing this review in case it is helpful for any future guests.

When we arrived, it was very confusing to figure out where to pull up for valet parking. One of us had to drive around the block while the other one went inside to ask about the valet. The front desk person said that they had to call someone to come to the front. I waited and was not alerted when the valet arrived. I had to ask again and then they said, "oh yeah it's that guy standing over there"... It would be understandable if there was a lot going on at the time I was checking in but there was not. I think there was one other couple who was checking in and two people servicing the front desk. I went up to the man standing by the door and he was helpful but it was very unclear that that's who he was. Having a sign for the valet or some direction would have been very helpful!

We got checked in and went up to our hotel room. Two guys were leaving our room and they had just finished cleaning the carpets. That is a nice service because this hotel allows pets. However, the carpets were soaking wet and we did not feel comfortable putting any of our stuff on the floor. I called down to the front desk and they said they could switch our room but we would have to lug all of our stuff back downstairs. We asked how long it would take for the carpets to dry and they said about 3 to 4 hours. In about 5 hours, we felt comfortable enough to put a few of our things on the floor. However, the next day the floor was still damp in certain parts of the room.

This hotel does charge extra fees and I did use a third party system which did not explain that they charge a 16% registration fee upon arrival. I was aware that I would have some extra charges, however I was not aware that it would up the amount by $100 more than I was expecting. When we arrived, they quickly put a sign up front stating this before I paid...to me, this implied that a lot of people are unaware of the extra fees. They do offer some benefits because of the extra fees. One of the benefits is that you get a $25 e-gift card for each night that you stay at their hotel. We were hoping to use some of these while we were in Chicago. I went down the first night before we went to dinner to ask how we get these gift cards and the woman said that they usually email the gift cards upon departure. She said they would use the email they took when I checked in. I told her no one took my email when I checked in. She wrote down my email and said that she would send the email that night so that we might be able to use some of the gift cards while we were in Chicago. The email never came. When I was checking out I explained to the man at the front desk what had happened and he pulled out a list with names, emails, and nights stayed. He asked if my name was on the list and when I said no he had me fill out my information on it. Then he was able to email me the e-gift cards.

It seemed like one of the main issues was communication with the staff. They were all willing to help, but struggled with follow through. An example of this would be on the second day we went out in the morning, and we had asked for more towels and toilet paper to be sent up to our room while we were out. The girl at the front desk wrote down what we needed and our room number. She said she would have some sent up. When we arrived later in the afternoon, nothing had been brought up. I called down to the front desk and they said we could have more but we needed to come and get them. This was not a problem, but it was annoying since we had just come from there and if we had known we would have grabbed the items on our way up.

Like I said, overall we enjoyed our stay in Chicago. For a four-star hotel, just changing a few things, might have made our stay a...