Holiday Inn & Suites Houston West - Westway Park by IHG — Hotel in Houston

Date of stay: 09/07/18 - 09/10/18

Room type: King Bed Executive Nonsmoking

Floor: Third floor

First off let me start off by saying that I have stayed at this hotel many times. I frequent this location because of it's proximity to 290, Beltway 8 and I-10. The area is secluded and quiet without any major highway noise to deal with.

Parking: During my stay the front area parking filled up pretty quickly. This was due to U-Hauls and/or trailers taking up multiple parking spots in the front area. There is parking in the back of the hotel, but the lighting isn't that great if you park near vs away from the hotel.

Exterior and Hotel Lobby: Both the hotel exterior and lobby area are always well tended to. Very clean.

Check-in: In past check-in experiences hotel staff normally makes you away of the "nightly charge" of $25 per night prior to placing a hold on your card. This was not my experience during my stay when she attempted to place the hold on the same card used for my three night stay.

Furthermore, I was not provided with the typical check-inform that you initial and sign up checking in. Perhaps Holiday Inn changed their procedures?

Hotel Room: The hotel room was clean for the exception of a few strand of hairs on the bathroom floor. This is an honest oversight that can happen during housekeeping tending to the room.

Electronics: Upon attempting to use the TV it reflected a "no signal" message. The issue was the TV was attempting to connect via HDMI 1 when the output was via "component". This issue occurred ever time the TV was powered off. I had to navigate the input from HDMI 1 to component during my entire stay.

The iron cord would not remain out and would retract. It appears that someone broke the stay feature on the iron in my room.

A/C: The air-condition in my room made a loud sound. This sound only appeared when it was cooling the room. The noise level was so loud that you could hear the unit one room away and easily from the door entrance. I did not notice this issue from other rooms that I passed on my way to the elevator.

Bedding: The mattress was not as plush as in previous visits. While I understand that this is normal wear and tear it can easily be corrected by the hotel staff pro-actively checking the bedding conditioning and replacing items in a timely manner.

Late check-out: I requested a late check out of 1pm. At approximately 12:15pm housekeeping knocked at my door. I informed them that I had a late check-out of 1pm. I do not understand why this continues to be an issue at some Holiday Inn locations. Why is the front desk not communicating this information to housekeeping?

Check-out: I used to credit cards upon arrival; one for my room charge and the other for the nightly fee of $25/night. At 4am on 09/10/18 I received an email that a charge of $111 had been attempted on the card I used for my nightly hold. I called the front desk to inquire why a charge had been attempted on the card used for the nightly hold and the female tending to me seemed confused. We gained agreement that she would "work on it" and I would check back on this issue upon checking out.

Upon leaving the property I stopped by the front desk and Valerie informed me that the issue had been corrected. She printed me out a receipt of the amount charged to my credit card and assured me that the $69 authorization hold would fall off the other credit card and no charge of $111 would appear. I am awaiting my credit card bill to verify this information.

I titled my review "Time To Tidy Up" because many of the minor issues notated above could be tended to by housekeeping checking the conditions of the applicable items and promptly reporting them to hotel management for replacement.

Pro's: Hotel location, cleanliness, room value and noise level.

Con's: Room had a few items that need to be updated, poor lighting at back of hotel and TV...

I was the victim of a scam given by the hotel employee with the connivance of the manager.

I arrived at the Holiday Inn Hotel, 4606 Westway Park BLVD, Houston, Texas, through a reservation made by the Kontik company that provides services to Braskem, to work for a week (10 to 17/09/22). When paying my card, it didn't go through their system, and I was informed by the employee Veronica that I couldn't pay in cash (dollars). I agreed with her that I would try more, because my card was all normal and the bank assured me that there was no problem. The night I tried to spend it again with the employee Marcos, who had switched shifts with Veronica, and the card failed again. Then I commented to this employee that I wouldn't pay in cash just because they didn't accept it. From then on Marcos set up a coup worthy of a movie:

Marcos said he accepted cash. And that Veronica didn't know what she was talking about. So I made the payment in hand, of 822 dollars to Marcos, having my colleague from the company, as a witness. I signed the paper attesting to the stay, and was definitively released to the room (veronica had already let me into the room to make the payment later). At this time Marcos changed my room access card. I asked Marcos if he wouldn't have a receipt, he told me he would only give the receipt at checkout. I trusted and stayed calm.

The next day Veronica informed me that my daily rates were still not paid. I was scared and told her that I had paid Marcos in cash. She warned me that I could not pay cash. I explained to her what Marcos said and she informed the management and called Marcos. Marcos said that I hadn't paid him anything, and that he just helped me get an Uber.

From there, a series of lies followed, including that my colleague and I were drunk by the time we arrived at the hotel reception. We met with the hotel manager and asked to see the footage, which is in an almost blind spot in relation to the reception desk. Which already seemed quite suspicious to me. We stood in front of Marcos and the manager Margarete in the middle of the week, and my colleague and I stated everything in front of him, who was silent, looking guilty, and the manager defending him the whole time. Which seemed pretty suspicious to me too.

The story is long. The manager Margarete preferred to believe Marcos' lies, fired Veronica (the only one who was right on that occasion), and told me that she couldn't do anything because Marcos had been an employee for more than 5 years and the cameras showed me taking my wallet and giving him something (the money), but the camera's position couldn't prove it was money. When it was time to receive the money, Marcos moved to the side of the counter, which was exactly where the camera could only film my back.

In short: I was robbed by the employee himself (Marcos) and the manager (Margarete) preferred to believe the thief employee than a client employed by a multinational company, who was there for the company (it was not even a private trip), even with a person as a witness. And she even fired the employee (Veronica) who knew the whole story and who probably defended me.

In the end, they still charged me the daily rate on my card, which until then was not going through their system, and the checkout went through normally without me having to enter the password (which was already very suspicious)

Unbelievable.

Do not enter this...

Where do I even begin!! We chose this hotel for our kids soccer team for the pool. NO warning online that it is closed long term for maintenance. So no pool access either night. We also chose it because the website boasts “free breakfast for kids!” The next morning we find out the buffet isn’t even open. It was a Saturday morning.. why would it be closed? So we sit down and order food. There was only 1 other family in there and our food took 45 min. Eggs, toast, sausage.. we had to have him bring it out in a to go box because we were not going to be late for our game. We thought we would be having a quick already made Buffett AND that it would be free for the kids per the website. But wait it gets better. We get back from our soccer games all hot.. younger siblings way past nap time and instead of going our room we find out that some families keys had been shut off and could not be fixed. You had to wait for someone to walk you which took forever. On top of that they said they were doing construction tomorrow morning so everyone on the 4th and 5th floor would have to move rooms to lower levels. Why didn’t you do this yesterday when we checked in?? On top of that the new rooms were not ready (it was 4 pm) AND there wasn’t enough for all the families to move. Luckily I think we got the last one. Our friends have to pack up and move hotels. It was such a hot mess. I watched a lady walk people to rooms only to walk them back down because the man working the desk had double booked it and there were people in there.. the next family we saw who had to move was just sitting in the hall on the floor because their new room wasn’t clean yet. We get walked to our new room eventually after an hour long fiasco in line with everyone else.. they said they would bring keys later so we couldn’t leave the room without finding someone to let us back in. We then found out one of the families with us booked a room at 2 pm.. so tell me why you let them book a room at 2 pm knowing there wasn’t enough rooms for the people CURRENTLY staying there?? Finally, the icing on the cake. Our kids played on their iPads in the lobby during the hour long room switch fiasco after a long hot soccer game. When we finally got walked up I rushed them to come and one left his iPad. The next morning on the way out for our game I ask the man at the front desk if he had saw it he said yes the blue one? I said yes! And thanked him. He said he bagged it up and put it in lost and found. 10 min later he hasn’t returned and I knew this couldn’t be good. He finally comes back and says.. I’m gonna be honest.. I left for the night and it was there then and it’s not there now. He says he can take my name and number incase they find it. Clearly it was taken by night shift I’m not an idiot. And he screwed up by telling me he had found it and everything so he was nervous. I said I’m going to this game and I WILL be back to figure this out so you better find it. Wow, what a miracle!! 10 min later I get a call it’s been “found”. I seriously left like I was being pranked at how much of a hot mess this entire process was. I will never stay at a holiday inn ever again. Avoid this place!

Ps: While looking for the iPad in the lobby a man who appears homeless who I had seen roaming around all weekend outside and inside told me he had not seen it but that he does NOT work here but “cleans up” for them....