Hilton Santa Fe Historic Plaza — Hotel in Santa Fe

I had a confirmed reservation for the Hilton Santa Fe Historic Plaza on Saturday, May 24, 2025 that I booked through the Hilton Honors app.

We arrived a little before 11 pm on Saturday night (5-24-25) to check in. Chad was the front desk clerk and immediately informed us that they were fully booked and did not have a room for us. I advised and showed him that I had a reserved confirmation. He told us that someone had forgotten to turn off the online booking option and the hotel was overbooked. I asked, being that this was Hilton's mistake, how they were going to be able to help us. Chad said the only thing he would (not could, but would) do was issue me a refund with no late cancelation penalties. I thought this was a strange way to put it being that I did not cancel my reservation. I also advised that this wasn't an option for us as we were from out of town and had no where else to go. Chad advised that they did have one room available but it was $999. My reservation rate was for $271 so I asked if he would honor the reservation rate (again because it was the hotels mistake). Chad advised that we would have to pay the difference. This would have been an additional $728 which one, I could not afford and two, did not believe should be my responsibility. Chad and I went back and forth between him telling me I either could pay the difference for the last room or leave. It was after 11 pm at this point and the more expensive room was not booked. We only needed it for one night, which at this point would have been a total of about 12 hours. I asked didn't it make sense to get $271 for the room instead of not rentng it out at all? Chad would not budge in this aspect. We asked Chad for any other assistance (i.e. calling other locations or other hotels to help us) which he refused to do. He told us that if we didn't leave he would have security remove us. I reminded him that we were from out of town and had no where else to go. He did not care.

I eventually called the Hilton Honors Customer Service number and was connected to a Customer Service Rep. I advised her of all of the above. She called the Hilton Santa Fe Historic Plaza and spoke to Chad who advised her that there was no vacancy (even though they did have one available room) which she passed along to me. I advised her that Chad misinformed her because there was a room available according to what he had told us. She called and spoke to Chad again. This time he did admit that there was a room available but he would not allow us to rent it that night at the room rate we reserved, he would require us to pay the difference of $728. I stressed again that I could not afford to do that, nor did I feel I should have to being that it was Hilton's mistake. The customer service rep was very polite and helpful but advised that she was not able to override Chad's decision.

The "resolution" ended up being that the customer service rep found us an available room in Albuquerque, NM (about one hour away). So we had to drive an hour further south out of our way and arrived after midnight to our room in Albuquerque. The customer service rep and the staff at the Albuquerque location were friendly and helpful and we were thankful for that.

However, I have never been treated as poorly from a customer service perspective as I was by Chad. I was appalled how inappropriately he handled the entire situation, in particular having no regard for our safety at 11 pm on a Saturday night and being dishonest with the customer service representative when she spoke to him. I really feel like, being that this was Hilton's mistake, that this should have been handled by allowing us to rent the last available room at the rate I reserved instead of being very rude to us and sending us an hour away to find a replacement room.

Out of curiosity, when I arrived in Albuquerque I checked online to see if the $999 room from Hilton Santa Fe Historic Plaza was still available. Not only was it still available, but the room rate had been reduced from...

We are a Hilton’s rewards member so when booking I of course picked a Hilton. I should have read TripAdvisor reviews in advance!||Pros: excellent location and historic property!||Cons: when we arrived and checked in, it was a brief exchange with the person at the desk. I don’t think they checked on how many nights we were staying, what type of room we had, or if we were Hilton rewards members - not a big deal but I should have seen this as sign of the poor customer service that would follow. When we got to our room I immediately noticed it was not what I had reserved. I checked my email before calling to make sure, and we should have had a king room and were given to double beds. When I called the desk. they told me that they had no other rooms available. I stated that I had made the reservation many months in advance, and I was informed that the HVAC system was out and some rooms were not available. This of course was not communicated in advance or at the desk. I ask if we could receive a discount and she said had no idea. I felt like I had to prompt for more information, but eventually she said she would let me know. Someone later reached out to me via text to see how our stay was going. I followed up with them regarding a discount. They instead offered us breakfast vouchers, which would be available at the desk the following morning. When I went to the desk, the staff there (management level) said they had no idea what I was talking about, they had no vouchers and did not have the ability to print any. They seemed agitated with me for even asking and had an attitude like it was not their problem. I was eventually told to eat breakfast and that they would comp it from my bill. We did have breakfast and it was not very good. Some of the food was cold, the eggs tasted strange and they had stale coffee. Other issues we had… we were at street level and the sidewalk was immediately outside of our window, so in order to have privacy, we had to keep the curtains closed, which made the room extremely dark. There were strange sounds coming from the air conditioning, it sounded like someone was breathing heavily/snoring. The faucet in the bathroom was poorly constructed, where if you did not turn it on enough it would run all over the counter. We also drink decaf coffee. They had it our first morning in the lobby, but the second morning I was told that if we wanted it, we had to go to the restaurant and purchase it. Then when we went to leave I asked about removing the breakfast charges and the person at the desk could not do it immediately. I will say she took care of it within a few hours, but overall we ended up communicating with four different people about not getting the room we requested, getting breakfast vouchers and getting breakfast refunded. ||Overall I think the main issue is that this was a very expensive hotel stay and we deserved a higher level of service and...

DO NOT STAY HERE I was producing a small commercial traveling the USA for two weeks. I had the misfortune of using Hilton’s Santa Fe Historic Plaza for crew lodging.

On Friday, June 21st, the hotel had agreed on a nightly rate of $173.63 for 10x rooms. The following Tuesday, June 25th, we ended up having to release 4x of the 10x rooms on our block due to crew members testing positive for Covid.

It was then brought to my attention that they were going to charge my credit card for all rooms/nights regardless. I asked if there was any forgiveness given the circumstances. My contact informed me that she needed permission from the Director of Sales, Ernesto Montano. She asked me to call back the following day.

Wednesday, June 26th I followed up several times via email and phone call. No one got back to me.

At 10:36 AM on Thursday, June 27th (day of check in) I finally received an email saying my request had been denied. I immediately responded and told them that was unacceptable and I could potentially lose my job over the matter. At 02:36 PM I finally received a phone call from Ernesto. He gave me an ultimatum:

A) Pay for all 10x rooms for all nights at the price of $173.63/night B) Only pay for the rooms we're using at the inflated price of $289/night

With this price increase per room, I had far exceeded what I could afford. Since I didn’t want to lose my job, I painfully paid the difference out of pocket. I had tried to reach Ernesto every day since checking in and he never returned my calls or emails.

Ernesto had explained he was unable to honor the original rate because he was unable to sell the rooms I had held originally. I know this was a lie because I tried changing rooms everyday during my stay due to the condition it was in. The front desk told me I was unable to change because the entire hotel was sold out. The attached photos to this review are a few examples of the general state: stinky, moldy, dark and in need of upkeep. The video is of my air conditioning which howled whenever in use. This is not the condition of a 4 star hotel for $289/night.

In all my years of coordinating travel, I have never come across a hotel that has been so cold and unaccommodating. All this said, I don't plan on using Hilton for production room blocks in the future. In New Mexico or otherwise.

Given the inflated price I was basically held hostage to pay, I could have enjoyed a far more luxiours experience in Santa Fe at the following hotels (priced from lowest to highest):

Hotel St. Francis Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi The Inn of the Five Graces

I highly recommend the above hotels as an alternative! Don’t become a victim of the crooks at Hilton...