Holiday Inn Chicago – Midway Airport S by IHG — Hotel in Lake Township

I cannot overstate how mismanaged and seemingly sketchy this hotel is operated. I have lived in Chicago for 10 years and have family come to visit without any problems at other hotels during this time.

During my stepmom's stay, she returned to her hotel room from a day of sightseeing and found that her room key would not open the door to her room. She went down to the front desk and they gave her a replacement key.

She returned to the room to find a strange man in his underwear in her bed, and all of her possessions were gone — nothing was in the room anymore except for the man’s things. He was aggressive, and equally confused as to why the front desk had given someone the key to a room that he thought was his.

She was obviously very upset and panicking, being in a strange city and having all of her stuff seemingly stolen. We went down to the front desk to explain the situation, who then escalated it to the night manager.

As it turns out, the front desk had switched her room the night before but not updated it in their computer system -- so they rented the room to someone else. The housekeeping staff saw that the room was occpied (clothes hanging in the closet, sleep mask in the nightstand). Instead of calling anyone, or flagging that there may have been a problem, they simply stuffed all of her possessions she had unpacked (jewlery, electronics, underwear, etc.) into a trash bag, put it into her suitcase, and then moved the suitcase to the manager's office without telling anyone. The night manager got to the bottom of the situation relatively quickly and found her into a new room, but he was fairly defensive and tried to minimize how startling the situation really was.

As compensation, they gave my stepmom 10,000 points (roughly $70) that she can only spend at one of their hotels. This does not even cover one night of her three night stay at this hotel. Luckily, she was able to verify that the househeeping staff had packed all of her possessions up from the room and she was not missing anything. Otherwise, a police report definitely would have been warranted.

Outside of this extreme experience, which I am hoping is not common and does not happen to anyone else, the hotel is probably a 3/5 star experience and other options should be considered. Parking in their lot is $20 per night, but a parking spot is not guaranteed. There were zero parking sports upon returning to the hotel at 8:30 on a Friday night. The front desk suggested that we park in the nearby Planet Fitness parking lot and we would not be towed. This is okay, but why are we paying $20 to park if you cannot even get a spot? Other complaints are that the hotel is pretty far South from the airport, breakfast is an additional $17 per person, and the rooms are pretty dimly lit. It is located right next to the Ford City mall, which locals tend to avoid due to crime. Overall, just please pick a hotel where your stuff will be safe, and you can go out and enjoy the city without worrying. It might be the cheapest option around, but its probably that way...

BEWARE MR.LEONARD WILL TRY TO STEAL MONEY FROM YOUR CARD & LIE AND SAY YOU STAYED AN EXTRA DAY!! they have ANTS crawling all over the room, charge you $20 just to park in a parking lot that THEY OWN which is stupid! tub dirty, hot water didn’t work! I Stayed here for ONE night and they attempted to charge my card for additional $193 at 1PM saying that basically counts for an extra day! huh?? 2 hours past check out amounts to a $193 late check out fee & the room only cost $143 to book? RIDICULOUS! the rooms & the hotel in general is not even that nice to charge such an outrageous amount! We asked for a late check out upon checking in anyway! multiple $1, $5, $50, $90 charges on my card but could not because my card was locked! Mr. Leonard LIED & said the reason for these charges was because “someone was in the room” after I CHECKED OUT at 1PM & BOTH keys were left in the room! How is that possible?? the keys EXPIRE & no longer work after a certain amount of time so how could I have done that? at first he said they attempted to charge my card because “I didn’t officially checkout the room” (the keys were left in the room & I left the premises, I do this at other hotels all the time & never have a problem but ok.) then he said it was because “someone was in the room later in the day” WHICH ONE IS IT?! He’s UNPROFESSIONAL & HE’S A LIAR. If HOUSEKEEPING came in the room and cleaned it after my stay, like they’re suppose to then they would clearly be able to see that NO ONE was in there! especially because the keys were IN the room! 0 stars this location is weird, dirty & the workers are liars. GO TO HYATT PLACE for...

This hotel had been a favorite of mine, nice renovated rooms, pretty good value for what you pay for. However in my last two stays I’ve seen maintenance has taken a liking to using excessive air freshening devices on the walls of hallways as well as spraying the rooms a lot…I’ve never been to a reputable brand hotel that does this. Most hotels know there’s a large variety of visitors and not all like that sort of thing. The smell is really strong, offensive and makes it hard to breathe and relax and rest if it’s not something one is used to in their home environment. Not to mention, apart from personal preference there are people that are allergic to these toxic cheap synthetic fragrance chemicals or have breathing issues like asthma that can be aggravated by them. It’s overall very disrespectful and inconsiderate and ruins the experience for many patrons. It also looks bad because it makes one wonder what foul smells are they trying to hide with all this strong perfume? If the facilities are clean, no strong perfume, just the smell of pure cleanliness, would be perfectly acceptable and what is practiced by any other reputable hotel that is considerate of the wide range of preferences and different health conditions of visitors. I really hope management takes this into consideration for the comfort and wellbeing of guests. I for one will not be revisiting until I get an adequate response and have evidence of this problem being addressed. It’s also not great they charge 20 for parking when nearby hotels...