Aloft Seattle Sea-Tac Airport — Hotel in SeaTac

Avoid Aloft Seatac at all costs. If you are a dedicated Marriott traveler like I am, I recommend the Fairfield and Residence Inn which are right down the block. They are similarly priced, recently build and the rooms are almost the same as Aloft. The difference between these hotels is the customer service.

What is wrong with Aloft? The manager has implemented so many cost-saving measures that it has impacted quality and customer service. I travel frequently and stay almost exclusively at Marriott hotels. Because of my titanium status, I qualify for complimentary breakfast – except at Aloft. I will never stay at Aloft Seatac again.

Here is why:

No breakfast provided on weekends. I guess not paying people to work on the weekends saves them money. The Fairfield, down the block, provides breakfast everyday. Instead of the usual breakfast buffet, they provide a small cup of food. Its enough food…if you want to join a diet camp. See attached picture of the small cup of food they call breakfast.

And you better not ask for another cup! They strictly enforce this rule! My wife and I were staying at the hotel and I asked for another cup to bring up to my room. The front desk person refused saying “If you want another cup, your wife has to come in person. One cup per person!” Not only that, only two cups are allowed per room, no matter how many people stay there! I felt like I was trapped in some kind of Oliver Twist horror movie. “excuse me sir, may I have another?”

And what happens on the weekends when they stop serving breakfast all together? Instead of the cup, I asked if I could take something from the market store instead. Cereal? Milk? Again, the front desk refused “You get one cup and that’s it. If you want something from the market, you have to pay for it.” Again, it was as if I woke up in some kind of Oliver Twist horror movie.

Room Service. They have a policy that they will only clean your room after the third day – which is normal at many Marriott hotels. However, the front person enforces this with ruthless efficiency. I was staying four nights so I asked "Since I qualify for room service on the third day, can I move it to the second day instead?" The front desk person said “No, we will not clean your room until the third day. No exceptions.”

My list of how bad the customer service is goes on and on. It was almost shocking how the front desk person enforced the rules without regard to customer care. I even tried to negotiate with her and explained that I would need to write a review if she kept insisting on these measures. Her response? “Go ahead. Write your review.”

Are they running a...

I stay at Marriott properties very frequently for work, and have never before had a complaint or issue.

However I wanted to caution travellers about the SeaTac Aloft property, especially if you are traveling with kids.

There is only one place to eat in the hotel, and guests under 21 are not allowed to eat there and need to stay on the carpeted area outside the "lounge area." Not a huge deal, especially because I don't know that kids are the targeted clientele here (even though mine are quiet and a bit older.)

The larger issue is that the hotel website says that the hotel offers complimentary parking, and since most travellers use the hotel to fly out of Seatac, I thought that meant that I could park my car at the hotel for the few days I would be traveling, for an extra fee or as an included hotel amenity.

Not so, I was told after I had checked in, I would need to drive my car to an aiport parking lot at night with my two kids (they weren't sure which one or how much it would be) and figure out a way to get us all back to the hotel to sleep and then take the shuttle from the hotel to the airport -- and then, post travel, get my car from the car park rather than back at the hotel (where I'd planned to stay three days later when we returned late at night). Though the Aloft Parking garage was nearly empty, I was told there was no option to pay for parking there since I wouldn't be staying on property the two nights I would be gone. Further, if I did try to keep it there I would likely be towed since they are now "strict about parking."

"But your website says parking is complimentary," I said.

"Only for the night you're at the hotel," the management said. Which makes zero sense to me.

Since it was too late to cancel my reservation without full penalty, I told the front desk I needed to figure out how to get my car to a parking garage and ourselves back to the hotel when one of the front desk clerks, sensing my dismay, said she could make an exception and let me park at the hotel until my return.

I was later told she should not have done that and in fact I should have been told I could pay for daily parking at the hotel. The hotel asked me for a credit card and I had to fill out an additional form to pay 60 dollars in additional fees. Though I'd specified a different credit card, they put the charges on the corporate card I had on my Bonvoy membership.

If all my other Marriott experiences hadn't been so seamless, I'd likely move to a different loyalty program. I'll definitely never stay at this...

Multiple opportunities within my visit. Upon arrival, I attempted to use the mobile key per the instructions for the app since it was late in the evening and it didn't work. The front-end attendee told me that it didn't work at the airport properties. I also alerted him that I had 2 reservations and asked if I could merge them at check-in. The gentleman told me that they automatically merged but that he could only give me a parking pass for one day since it was tied to the first night only. Parking at the hotel was free and he could easily see that I was staying 4 days but he insisted that I come down and get a new written pass every day. The next morning as I headed out, I stopped by the front desk to ask the attendant on duty about the merging of the days and the parking pass. She informed me that the days do not automatically merge together and that my key would be deactivated at noon that day. She also wrote me a new parking pass. Before I returned to the hotel for the evening, I sent a chat through the app to ask for a fresh set of towels. Nobody returned my chat so an hour later I arrived back at the hotel lobby and asked in-person. The associate informed me that she just returned my chat and that they didn't have any face towels available in the entire hotel. She also said that I couldn't have my room cleaned until I'd been there for 3 days and that this was only the 2nd day. No face towels or hand towels were provided - only 2 bath towels and an unconcerned shrug from the employee. On day 3, I stopped by the hotel desk on my way out and asked that someone clean my room. We were told they would. I ran back to the hotel in the afternoon to make a room drop and noticed around 1pm that my room still wasn't cleaned. When I asked the housekeeping crew on my hallway if my room was slated to be cleaned the answer was no. I stopped by the front desk around 1:30 and was told that they would be getting to it later today. I returned to the hotel room around 8:30 pm and the room wasn't cleaned and there were no fresh towels. My husband went down to the lobby to get towels and he noticed that there were notices being put under people's doors about the covid restraints and not being able to clean your room unless you request it in advance (which we did) and if you were staying multiple days (which we were). I initially thought that staying close to the airport would be a better fit than staying at a competitor downtown but I regret...