Best Western Premier Ashton Suites-Willowbrook — Hotel in Houston

I was finally able to speak to the manager, Diyar Modi, who said he responded to my review but denied that the review was his as he had tried to make out that I was mistaken.

Apparently, this business lies and mistreats it's customers and believes it's in their right to belittle the little man. He insisted that we're at fault and was confrontational throughout the encounter. The daytime girl at the front desk, Stephanie, admitted that the girl who checked us in, Candy, was new and that's why she made that mistake. Even then, the manager was rude and belligerent. They shouldn't be allowed to mistreat hardworking paying customers this way. I urge you not to stay at this hotel that doesn't care at all about service, deecency, or honesty. It's not even an issue of the money. If we had been approached in a respectful explanatory manner, stating that there was a mixup during check-in and apologizing for the inconvenience, then we would have no issue at all. Money is only everything to those who treat people this way and the room was already over 200 dollars so an extra 40 didn't matter. It's the principle and the manner we've been treated is just despicable. I've had many experiences at hotels and never been treated this way, as if I'm a cheating vagabond. It's racist and discriminatory, due to my religious garb. I've seen other reviewers complaining of the same.

My initial response:

I've never had such a terrible customer service experience as I did with this hotel. I was made to feel unwelcome due to the hostility I faced from the front desk staff. It's a shame that businesses feel like they are entitled to treat hard-working people this way as they fear no consequence. This has marred by trip to Houston, and I will avoid staying at Best Westerns from now on. I've never had a negative experience with hotel staff in the many hotels I've frequented throughout the years.

We arrived in Houston late last night and a friend reserved a suite at this hotel for us in an act of kindness (a suite with 2 queen beds). He drove us to the hotel to check us in, provided his identification, signed the paperwork, and took his leave. The girl working at the front desk gave us our keycards (3 of them for the 3 of us). We even asked her if the coffee/tea downstairs was complementary (which she confirmed was) before taking our leave to the room. Bear in mind, it was very late at this time and the girl had checked us in with no issues. Now, come the next day, we head out to explore the city and then arrive at the hotel again. As we're entering, we stop at the lobby to make some coffee, when the girl at the front desk approaches us and makes us feel unwelcome. She asks what room we're staying in a hostile way, as if we just decided to trespass and free-load even though she had seen us leave beforehand. I was traveling with my elderly parents and they felt very uncomfortable by her rude questioning. She then returns and asks me how many "of us" are staying at the hotel. I reply that we are 3 guests in total. She then comes back and tells us that the reservation was only made for one person, so there shouldn't be three of us. I tell her that the 3 of us had checked in late last night, gotten 3 keycards, spoken to the girl at the front desk, and weren't informed of any discrepancy with the booking. She doesn't respond after that, and we head upstairs, upset by that encounter. She then calls the room and tells my father to head down to the front desk. He tells her that we're busy at the moment and would be free later. We get ready to leave to a prior engagement, and as we're passing by the lobby, we notice that it's quite busy. We have no time to spare so we decide to speak with them when we return. Some time passes and we return to the hotel to find that they locked us out of our rooms. (I've run out of characters but will repost...

My family had a horrible experience on 5/28- 5/29/2021 at this hotel. We drove from Louisiana with my son's soccer team for the Memorial Day Cup and we booked the room a while back. We checked in Friday night at 11 pm. At the front desk there was a gentleman named Modi. At first he was sure we don't have a reservation at his hotel and it took some convincing to make him look again for our booking info . After he found our reservations we politely asked if it's possible to get a room on the top floor or not so close to the elevator and that seemed to upset him. His answers were very rude and his attitude was not welcoming. Mr Modi acted like we were staying in the hotel for free and he was wasting his precious time on us. He did not give us any information about the complementary breakfast or about the wi fi password or any other normal front desk information at the time of check in. Because of the late hour and because I was carrying an 7y old asleep in my arms, we just rushed to the room thinking Mr Modi must've had a bad day . The next morning at 8 30 we went in the lobby to inquire about breakfast. I guess it wasn't our lucky day...the only staff at the front desk was Mr Modi. He cut us short by telling us and other people from our soccer team that breakfast was served from 6 to 8 30. My husband tried to explain we were not informed about that at check in and that we counted on having food for the kids from the hotel that morning. Also we didn't observe anyone having breakfast in the dining area of the lobby or signs of breakfast been served or staff cleaning after breakfast. The dinning area was closed and have been used at least for a while as a deposit for the stacked chairs and big boxes. I asked what kind of food they offer so we could make breakfast plans for the next morning. I am recounting all in details because nothing could have prepared me for Mr Modi's reaction to our questions. Instead of saying he is sorry he forgot to give the breakfast info he said : " Ok , I am solving your problem : You are checked out! I have the right to choose my customers. " Off course we couldn't believe he meant what he just said ..just because we were asking about our paid breakfast . He continued with the same intolerant attitude but this time he was very confrontational with my husband and refused to address me or even look at me. I am a peaceful and introverted person so it took a lot of strength to try to reason with Mr Modi. I felt disrespected as he ignored every " Excuse me sir, could you please explain why you are choosing to act like this? What is the problem? What did we do? Could you please acknowledge I am talking to you? The way you treat us is not respectful " I remember thinking we are in a parallel universe or a prank show at least. My husbad ask to speak with a manager and Mr Modi said he is the manager of the hotel and he can do whatever he wants . All this absurd exchange became even more bizarre when later we found out that Mr Modi couldn't be troubled to tell us about the grab and go bag with a granola bar or muffin, a banana and a water bottle . We eventually called the Best Western customers service who was very professional and really listen and cared about solving our problem and they did. The reason why I am spending my time writing this detailed review on a Memorial Weekend is because I realize that if Mr Modi treats this way a paying customer I can't imagine how much worse he must treat his staff. He obviously doesn't want to be in the hospitality business or in my opinion, in a civilized society. Who ever is really managing this hotel should pay attention, a nice building it's not enough to make a great hotel if you employ people like Mr Modi . I hope this will...

Looking at the reviews for this place, I almost didn't book it. But I'm glad I did. Here is my take-away.

1: Apparently people don't understand hotels add an incidentals charge to your card, and you get that refunded a few days after you check out. This Best Western is $100, and the website clearly states it.

2: Don't lie about the number of guests in your room. If you have two people, put two people so they charge you accordingly. This hotel enforces that. Hotels charge by the number of occupants. That's how hotels work.

3: I stayed one night in room 202 - one of the little suite rooms. The room was immaculately clean. Any wall scuffs had been recently touched up, and even the caulk in and around the bathrooms was fresh and white.

The room I stayed in had a mini kitchen, cutlery, and silverware, but oddly, I didn't see and cookware if you needed it.

The mattress was clean, stain-free and bug free, with a mattress protector.

The linens - sheets, towels, etc - were all clean, white, fresh and new.

The bath amenities in my suite, while being from a generic hospitality supply house, were a higher end line from the supplier. So not exactly brand name, but a higher quality line from the supply house.

There are k-cup brewers in room, and my room had folgers k-cups.

The internet is comcast, and it worked well enough. I was able to hook up my roku and stream netflix at 1080p60 with no issues.

The Samsung TVs in my room were fairly new and large.

There is a sundry shop next to the front desk with snacks, drinks and frozen meals for purchase.

The AC units had both continuous fan and auto mode, and also a high and low mode for the blower. You can set it to low at night for a nice background white-noise to help you sleep.

There are many thoughtful touches around the room - the lamps all have a light diffuser on top of them, the outlet in the bedroom had a nightlight shining against the carpet so you could see if you had to get up in the middle of the night, there are outlets at bed height on the wall, and in the lamps, there is a hard-wire station at the desk if you want to plug into the network instead of using wifi, etc.

This was a very clean, very well maintained property. It was hard to believe it was 11 years old - it still looked shockingly new. It is decorated and appointed tastefully everywhere you look.

The staff, what limited interaction I had with them, was all pleasant. Everyone was helpful, polite and friendly.

That being said, here are a couple of nit-picks: 1: The omelette station was not open during breakfast during my stay. Maybe it's closed on the weekends, not sure. Otherwise, breakfast was very good. There were numerous options - eggs, waffles (fresh made), muffins, toast, sausage, new potatoes with peppers, tortillas filled with egg and cheese, yogurt with a ton of topping options, cereals, etc. The eggs on the buffet looked freshly cooked from real eggs, not like some powdered egg mix.

2: There was no water available on the breakfast bar. They had apple juice, orange juice, and coffee, but no water. A pitcher of iced water would have been nice.

3: The website for the property states they have an onsite restaurant and bar. They were closed during my stay so I ventured elsewhere to grab dinner and a couple of cocktails.

Overall, I had a very pleasant stay. I hadn't been at a Best Western since 2008 because I had a very bad experience at one in New Jersey and it totally soured me on the brand. But this property - the owners apparently lovingly take care of it. You can see everywhere you look that they are constantly re-investing back into the property upkeep.

I'd stay here again in...