Holiday Inn Express South Burlington, an IHG Hotel — Hotel in South Burlington

I've been a frequent traveller for over 20yrs and I’ve experienced a wide variety of hotel standards and management practices. I would always approach the hotel management directly and/or the hotel chain guest services only if I felt there was a serious failure in standards, or a risk to other clients. On this occasion neither the hotel management (third party franchise owner Larkin Hospitality) have had the decency to respond and IHG Guest Relations have failed to assist across a wide range of issues which they are fully aware of.

Having now looked through other guests reviews over the past few months there are clearly common issues which neither the hotel, or IHG, have correctly addressed in order to reduce the number of repeat complaints - namely attitude of hotel staff, cleanliness of rooms, health and safety of rooms, safe operation of the elevators, workmen's tools blocking safety access stairs, quality of breakfast, general quality and upkeep of the building and value for money. IHG are simply stating that they have passed on the complaints to the hotel etc etc, yet the repeat complaints keep being raised.

My wife and I were touring Vermont during The Fall to celebrate our wedding anniversary and the Holiday Inn Express South Burlington was one of the worst experiences I’ve had with a hotel for many years. Firstly, I agree with previous posts that the external and internal appearance explains everything about what you might expect from the lowest budget hotel groups in the industry and no way does this compare to other excellent HI Express establishments I’ve previously stayed at.

Bullet points to note when choosing this hotel :

No welcome acknowledgment for Diamond Elite (Platinum) status (common complaint from other clients review posts).

No notice was taken of member profiles requesting quiet rooms away from elevators - room 501 allocated for us had a lift shaft passing adjacent to the bedroom wall.

Hotel email address posted on IHG website is for a different hotel - Note, both the receptionist and duty manager stated that ‘this was IHG’s fault’, as to why the hotel had not received an email 5 days prior to arrival requesting a quiet room away from elevators - I very quickly realised upon arrival that Larkin Hospitality only use IHG as a marketing link.

No notice was provided on the website to warn customers that in October the main elevator is still out of order and luggage would need to be lifted up a narrow emergency stairwell. Note, this issue dates back to July from previous review posts.

Tool trolley with battery tools, knives and screw drives had been abandoned right outside Elevator B for anyone to access. I found out later from reception that the owner of the tools had left the hotel without safely storing the trolley. Note, the similar review posted some weeks previous where tools were found blocking the stairwell and this was reported as an H&S issue blocking the emergency exit!

Elevator B at the far end of the building (only operating from 2nd to 5th floor) was damaged and dropped when approaching 5th floor (very scary experience). The elevator fault also caused excessive vibration noise through the bedroom wall in room 501.

When I complained about the elevator and requested a room change. I was informed that the hotel was fully booked and my room could not be moved. The receptionist confirmed that the hotel had been aware of the Elevator B fault for 5 days, but said nothing when I checked in. ‘Out Of Service’ labels were attached to elevator call buttons during our stay. Whilst I was queuing at reception I then witnessed an elderly couple checking in with large luggage being informed that both elevators were out of order and they would need to carry their luggage up 4 floors of stairs- the hotel did not offer assistance.

The receptionist informed me that the duty manager had been called to drive to the hotel and that she would be addressing the elevator issue. One hour later I found that the ‘out of service labels’ had been removed, and the elevator noise started once again in our room. The duty manager had apparently attended the hotel, removed the labels, and then promptly left to go home without any communication with myself. I called for the duty manager to return and this time I waited in reception. The duty manager arrived and informed me that she had tested the elevator 10 times and could find any issue. We then took a journey in the elevator and sure enough the elevator dropped with the loud vibrating noise. The duty manager said that it was her decision to leave the elevator in operation and she disagreed that there was any problem. I also invited the duty manager to enter room 501 so as to listen to the noise, as it was impossible to sleep - the manager refused and said that she ‘was already aware of the noise’!

One returning to reception with the duty manager I asked why she had left the hotel without meeting me and discussing the problem/solution. The duty manager refused to comment. I asked the same question five times and got the same response. I then asked the duty manager if she was prepared to apologise for her actions and again she refused to comment. I repeatedly requested an apology and she eventually looked down at her feet and said ‘alright, I’m sorry’ and shrugged her shoulders without so much as looking me in the face!

At this stage I explained that I used to work in Health & Safety and I was extremely concerned for the welfare of other guests that night at the hotel. The duty manager then said that the elevator engineers were due to arrive the following morning. At this stage I suggested that the police should be called to address the situation. The duty manager picked up the phone and called the General Manager and I was then allocated a new room, as a number of guests had not checked in. I asked why the room change couldn’t have been offered from the onset and the duty manager again refused to comment. I finally asked again about the safety of the elevator and the duty manager said she had made the decision to put the elevator back into operation!

The duty manager then went to inspect the room change before handing over the key. On entering the room I noticed that the bathroom fan was extremely noisy and would not switch off and the window was broken with a large section of loose glass with a long sharp edge - see photo to this post. I immediately returned to reception to raise these issues and the duty manager explained that the room met IHG standards! The duty manager then confirmed that I would receive a 100% refund for my stay. The room also had a number of large A/C units right outside the window just to add to the bathroom fan noise. We certainly had very little sleep in the room change.

I repeated all the complaints to reception the following morning and again there was no apology, but I was informed that the stay was f.o.c. I decided to document all of the issues and initially emailed these through to IHG guest relations, as I felt it was important that IHG understood how such an establishment can seriously damage the IHG brand reputation.

The hotel general manager has never responded to my complaints with any explanation or written apology. IHG guest services claim that the general manager has made contact with me and stated that they have no control over the daily operations of the hotel and they are unable to access the email reply. I’ve since requested this email response four times with no success. Ten days later I complained to IHG again for no response, even though I’d received emails from guest services stating they would send progress updates within 48hrs. The refund then appeared on my account along with some reward points which I assumed to be compensation without any communication, or explanation.

IHG eventually decided to send excerpts from an internal email which they had received from the General Manager which was full of so many untruths and specifically stated that I never reported the broken glass window - even though I'd also included the photo in my complaint report.

Sorry for this very lengthy review, but there are firstly some extremely concerning matters which I feel future guests to this hotel should be aware of. Secondly, I have contacted IHG to state that following 20+ years it is with deep regret that I will not be purchasing any further stays in any of IHG group properties, as there has been a serious failure of...

Let me begin by stating that I have stayed here on multiple occasions. This past weekend, my family and I stayed in two rooms and they were rather disappointing.

First the positive:

1. check in / checkout was relatively painless
2. the cleanliness of the room was as expected
3. the woman running the breakfast bar was a delight
4. the proximity to where we needed to be was pretty convenient and parking was not an issue

Next the negative:

1. most of the outlets between two rooms did not work. As you can see by the photographs, they need an electrician to do maintenance for them to be in working order. It was a struggle for us to all charge our phones.
2. after we had gone to bed (~10:30pm), someone banged on our door yelling "housekeeping, housekeeping, housekeeping". I jumped out of bed to answer the door and there was no one there. The front desk had no idea what was going on and no security cameras on our floor to address the issue. I had to wait for them to take my call while helping another customer and then they apologized to someone else while talking to me yet offered no help except to send a maintenance worker to our room while we were just trying to get to sleep!!
3. between both rooms, neither phone had dial tone or would turn on. I understand they are not connected to the front desk (by the front desk button) but I actually had to use my cell phone which could barely charge on their outlets in order to call the front desk about the security issue.
4. our hotel bookings are mostly determined by waffle or pancake offerings with the breakfast included. The pancake machine was limping by on its last leg. The woman at the breakfast bar was desperately trying to help everyone get two pancakes out of a constantly malfunctioning machine giving error messages, opening/closing, resetting and demanding to have a belt changed. She was very sweet and extremely helpful. Please get the machine either replaced or repaired for her sanity and the the guests expectations. It shouldn't be a 20-30 minute project to get a couple pancakes for three kids.
5. small matter but there weren't enough washcloths and towels in each room. Two washcloths/two towels for double queen beds doesn't make sense. There were five of us and not enough bath linens between two rooms.

In summary, we decided to brave the snow and ice storm and travel over horrendous roads home rather than spend another $450 in subpar...

Traveler details: My Mom was celebrating her 70th birthday, so we came to enjoy 7 days of winter in Vermont as well as visit friends in St. Johnsbury.

Arrival:

Greeted/checked in by Amber, who was excellent in her knowledge of the property and rewards perks through IHG. The property offers cookies and 24-hour coffee/hot tea.

-The building was built in 1987. Though older, it was remodeled in 2019. Because the property is older, the rooms are larger, and it has a working HOT TUB in the pool room!

The stay:

Fantastic. The windows open so you can get a little fresh air. The beds and pillows were fine. I liked the DOVE products offered by IHG (body wash, shampoo, etc). Though the HVAC unit is original with the building, for an older window unit it put out heat with no issues. The 2 elevators weren't an issue once we saw the layout of the building. The breakfast area was spacious, and each attendant who worked it was quick to either be cleaning or stocking it. At times, the WIFI was 1G, but usually it was slower.

Worthy of mentions:

2 restrooms near breakfast area, and 2 restrooms near pool/work out room. Laundry facility on floor 4 was MODERN with NEW/NICE coin-operated machines. We did a load. The desk sells Tide pods for $4 each and has quarters. The "halls and walls" of the common areas are kept clean, and don't appear to have much wear. The parking area is divided into the front and rear-side (way more parking). Both areas were well-lit, and did not feel unsafe.

Would Mom stay there again? This is an important metric, and the answer is YES. So would I. Thanks, y'all,...