Holiday Inn Express & Suites College Station by IHG — Hotel in College Station

I am writing this review based strictly on the lack of assistance I have received from the hotel and from IHG Corporate. Last year, I booked a room through the corporate app. I was booking the room for my in-laws, in case they could make an A&M game.

** For football weekends, I understand that hotels require longer than normal cancellations. But, sometimes, the corporate reservation system does not have the same restrictions. I even have an email from an IHG employee specifically saying that was possible!

I travel quite a bit and in over 30 years, I do not know a single hotel that I have booked that requires more than 3 day cancellations. If it does, I simply do not book with that hotel.

In this instance, I cancelled a week ahead of time and when I cancelled, the only comment from the hotel was "Thank you, we will send your cancellation notice." The cancellation notice was sent and I did not pay any attention until a couple of months after, when reconciling my credit card statement - realized they charged me $800 for two nights. I thought it would be a simple fix, so I called the hotel to explain the situation. They said they could not refund my money, as they have a "Two week cancellation on all football weekends."

I tried locating my original confirmation email, but interestingly - it was not on my app, not in my email history, not anywhere on the online system.

Over the course of a few weeks, I had talked to a dozen IHG employees as well as numerous calls to the hotel staff (which were less than helpful - they only had one comment "We have a two week cancellation on football weekends").

What am I asking for? One simple item : I want the original contract (confirmation email SENT TO ME) that shows where I agreed to a two week cancellation. If it is on the original email that was sent to me- then, I made a mistake.

No one in this whole system seems to be able to access the confirmation and no one is willing to offer any real help, other than quote their local cancellation policy.

Their strategy of ignoring me or making it so painful to talk to them that I will eventually give up. I have been there a few times, but then I stay at another hotel and remember how well I am treated elsewhere - I start asking again. I have not reached out on this review page, but thought this might be worth a shot.

I hope the owner of the hotel reads this or at least a manager that is new to the hotel. I am only asking for one thing right now - I would like evidence of the original agreement I had with you to pay the full two night stay if I cancelled less than 2 weeks out.

If you are willing to charge me $800 so quickly, I would assume you would have the evidence on file that shows you have the legal...

Holiday Inn Express has gone downhill rapidly in the last half decade. This is a good example of a property that has not been kept up nor does it have the quality of management to keep it up to the standards it should be given the pricing.

My check-in was terrible. The lady was wearing a mask (which is fine) AND behind a shield (kinda redundant, but whatever). However, I couldn't understand a word she said. Not one. She had to remove the mask to be coherent. That defeats the purpose of the mask in the first place. Since we were staying for 2 nights, she asked if I wanted the room cleaned between nights, and I responded cleaning wasn't necessary, but a towel refresh was. Guess what? No towel refresh the next morning. I guess they can't do one thing without the other. Of course, she didn't tell me that. I thought in a university town, one would be intelligent enough to know the difference. Stupid me.

We got to the room and there was an immediate odor. It wasn't horrendous, and truth be told, I have a well above average sense of smell, but my wife smelled it too. Easy conclusion: the carpets hadn't been cleaned. Like, in months. Hotel carpets should be cleaned quarterly minimum. Even monthly during a busy season as in a university town with 8+ home football games in the fall plus other events that make 2 and 3 night weekend stays the norm.

We were going out that night, so I hopped in the shower and this was a "you've got to be kidding me moment." Its a smaller than average bathtub shower with a large soap dish attached to the middle of the wall! What the heck? Every time I even thought of moving around, I hit that stupid thing with my shoulder. It was totally unnecessary. You couldn't move away from it because the tub was too small. Adding to shower problems is the curtain doesn't keep water from getting all over the floor regardless of how its closed. So your floor towel gets soaked and you risk slipping and falling. Not a fun experience.

I won't say the mattress was the worst I've slept on, but it wasn't very comfortable either. All in all, the room was the quality of the motel chain with the half dozen by its name for twice the price. Breakfast was worth what it is advertised for: free. Security was also a joke because a supposedly locked back door was propped open by a rock. I know that happens at a lot of places but its still a problem....

I stayed at this hotel for 3 nights hoping that it will be a good experience - however it was not a very pleasant one for the following reasons:

My hotel room given to me initially had a leaking ceiling right on top of the commode. I noticed it after a couple of hours and had to report it to the front desk and they assigned me a new room. This was a botheration since I had to shift all my luggage (which I had opened by that time) and was very tired because of all the travels.

The hotel was under repairs and construction and had a very dirty look in the lobby and alleys were all dirty as well. Also had an annoying paint smell throughout the hotel lobby and rooms which did not make the stay comfortable, especially if it was a 3 night stay.

My new assigned room had a couple of issues as well as follows:

a. The tv was not on the wall and was out of the stand lying on the location where we normally place the luggage. This made the TV viewing at a very odd position along with making available no proper space to place the luggage.

b. The bathroom shower door was sliding again and again during showr which made a mess outside the shower area, I had to manually control the door while taking a shower to ensure the water doesn't go out.

At breakfast, there were certain issues as well:

a. The pancake machine on my first day broke so I couldn't use it. I was running out of time by the time it got fixed and therefore did not use it.

b. On the 2nd day when the machine worked, it wasn't working properly again. Settings were out.

c. Breakfast options did not have a nametag on them and I was struggling to understand what meatless options are as I have a dietary restriction.

Because of all the experiences mentioned above, my stay at College Station Holiday Inn was not pleasant at all. Normally I stay at Holiday Inns but I might consider another hotel next time because of a series of bad experiences at the same hotel, especially for a long stay. Hopefully the management can take...