The Trade, Autograph Collection — Hotel in Milwaukee

Hotel Stay Experience – The Trade Autograph Collection, Marriott

I stayed at The Trade Autograph Collection by Marriott from September 27 to September 28 while attending a concert located across the street from the hotel. I arrived early, checking in around 11:30 AM. After dropping off my bags, I immediately left to get lunch and explore the surrounding neighborhood.

Upon returning, I showered and later had dinner at the Craft Restaurant inside the hotel. After dinner, I went back to my suite to get ready for the concert. Before leaving, I took a bottle of alcohol and some club sodas from the room, which I disclosed to the front desk. Following the concert, I had dinner at a nearby restaurant and returned to my room for the night.

The next morning, I thoroughly cleaned the room before checking out. I always travel with my own cleaning supplies—including bleach, wipes, and disinfectant spray—which I use to clean both before and after my stay. This is part of my personal standard for ensuring a sanitary environment, and it further confirms that I left the room in excellent condition. At checkout, I informed the representative that I had consumed one bottle of alcohol ($50) and some club sodas. I also reported that, upon checking in, I noticed gray hair on the bathroom counter and behind the tub, which gave me a poor first impression despite the overall cleanliness and beauty of the suite. The front desk agent acknowledged my concern but noted that I should have called down at the time.

Two days later, I noticed two additional charges on my account: $93 and $200. When I contacted the hotel, a staff member explained that the $93 was for the alcohol, club sodas, and Red Bulls. I clarified that there were no Red Bulls in the room and that I had only consumed alcohol and club sodas. He advised me to speak with management regarding the $200 “damage” charge.

When I spoke to the manager, Kim, she informed me that the $200 charge was due to alleged carpet stains documented by housekeeping. I explained that I had taken a full video of the room prior to leaving, which showed no damage. More importantly, I never ate or drank anything in the room other than water, so the claim that something was spilled on the carpet is completely false. Kim redirected me to Monique from housekeeping, who claimed to have photos of the carpet but failed to provide them, even after requesting my email address. Despite my repeated follow-up calls on October 1 and October 2, neither Kim nor Monique has sent me the promised photos or returned my calls.

Given that I have video evidence clearly showing no carpet damage at the time of my departure, I find these charges to be unfounded. I have since escalated the issue to Marriott Corporate for resolution.

In researching further, I have discovered that at least two other guests have reported the same issue—being charged for supposed carpet or room damages without any proof being provided. This raises serious concerns and leads me to believe that such practices may be a recurring pattern, if not an outright scam, at this property.

I strongly encourage future guests to document their rooms upon check-in and check-out, as I did, to protect themselves from potential false damage claims. Based on my experience and the reports of others, I do not recommend booking with this hotel. Beware of misleading charges. Ps why respond and...

My husband and I recently stayed here for a concert at Fiserv. Before being incredibly critical, let me start with some pros.

• The location in proximity to Fiserv. The BMO entrance was right across the street. From leaving the hotel to getting to my seat, it was the fastest entry into any event I've ever had. • The day we checked in, the front desk host was very friendly and the valet team was welcoming and informative. • We ordered room service for dinner on Friday night. It only took 15 minutes from the phone call to having the food in our room. Everything was hot and delicious.

Ok, now the cons. Buckle up, because boy, oh boy, are there a lot...

• The room was small, like hardly could pick up our suitcase and move around the room small. • The thermostat is LOCKED. I could turn the temp down only a few degrees. It felt like they didn't trust the guests to choose their own level of comfort. We are used to sleeping with our house temp set between 62-63, lowest they allowed was 67. It was difficult falling asleep and just made us irritated. • The room was dirty. There was dust on every shelf, the table, the coffee maker and pods, the bathroom counter, the bathroom shelf, and the bathroom floor/baseboards. The mirror was smudged and everytime we moved something, dust was flying in the air. It was gross and definitely should not be acceptable at this "classy" of an establishment. • The bathroom had an automatic motion light that stays on for about 5 minutes. It's right next to the bed and shined in our faces in the middle of the night. • The bathroom has a fan, but no switch to turn it on. This made for awkward and unpleasant bathroom time since it's basically right next to the bed. • Friday night we are eating in our room, someone knocks at the door, and my husband immediately stands up to go answer it. Before he could even reach the door (and remember the rooms are small), the guy opens the door! He's like "oh hey, you have a stain on the carpet?". We did not, and he just walked away. It was suspicious since he came in so quickly and had no cleaning supplies with him. • Friday afternoon we came back to the hotel and tried entering the revolving door. We didn't see the worker on the inside cleaning. She yells "other door!" And points to the one to the left. We go in, which happens to be the valet booth. As we walk past the worker she's snarkily says "I meant that other door". We were already inside so we don't understand the need to correct us after the fact. • With the exception of the Thursday afternoon front desk employee, all of the other front desk employees during our stay looked unhappy and unfriendly. We also tried calling from our room to get late check out (30 min or an hr), and were just turned down. • Additional issues - we requested extra pillows we never received and the first level stairwell door did not open with our key so we were forced to exit the building in an alley and walk around back to the front.

We are very disappointed after spending $250/night. We won't be back unless we absolutely have to be, but there are plenty of other hotels in the area that have treated...

The two stars for this review are for the rooms and the location. This is a beautiful hotel with updated rooms and facilities. The location was perfect for our wedding that we had at Gather at Deer District across the street.

We chose to book a room block at The Trade Hotel due to the close proximity to our wedding venue, for guest convenience. Setting up the block was a breeze with Marissa. We were given 30 rooms with an 80% attrition rate, but received no additional discount on rooms with the block - so you could easily stay here without a room block if you are considering. Setting up the block was the easiest part of booking at the trade, and it went downhill upon checking in on our wedding weekend.

The front desk staff is extremely unwelcoming and were wildly unhelpful when addressing problems that came up during the weekend. Upon check in, we were informed that they had "double booked" the suite that we booked 6 months prior to our wedding day. This suite was supposed to be used for the groom to sleep the night before, and to be used as the getting ready suite for the groom/groomsmen on the wedding day. They initially did not offer a solution to this extremely inconvenient mistake and only gave us options after a long exchange at the front desk. Their solution was to put the groomsmen in a conference room with no bathrooms or mirrors. While we worked with what we were given, this was way less than ideal for something that we had planned for a very long time. They never once apologized for the double booking and became severely defensive , pointing fingers at us instead of accepting their mistake.

Another quite large issue that came up during the weekend was the handling of our welcome gift bags for our guests. We paid $3 per bag to be handed out to guests when they checked into the hotel. 6 of our guests received the wrong wedding welcome bag, as another party was staying at the hotel. In addition, about half of our guests staying in the hotel never even received a bag. Upon check out, we were handed a box of 14 gift bags that were never even handed out! They were shocked when we were extremely upset with this. These gift bags took lot of time to put together, and were valued at over $20 per bag. The lack of organization for a simple task, that we also paid for, was very upsetting. The front desk staff again was extremely unhelpful with this matter. We ultimately left the hotel with a bad taste in our mouth, which is unfortunate after such a happy fun time at our wedding the night prior. We were given the contact for the GM, and they were finally apologetic and helpful when we again addressed our concerns. We ended up receiving a $200 credit back, but this we believe did not amount to all of the issues The Trade brought us.

All in all- I would NOT recommend booking a wedding room block at this hotel. We had another block at the Aloft hotel, which is right around the corner and had a WAY better experience/ wish we would have solely booked there. Avoid the bad customer service, unwelcoming front desk staff, and poor hospitality and book...