STAY — Hotel in West Chicago Township

I travel a lot for work and leisure, I've stayed at a wide range of hotels and hostels, and my experience with Stay 424 was one of the worst lodging experiences that I've ever had.

The hostel is much dingier than it looks in the photos and the private room I had booked could have used a deep cleaning. But the big problem was that when I arrived on a very hot evening in July, I discovered that the room didn't actually have its own air conditioning unit; despite the fact that the room was described as being air conditioned when I booked it! There was simply an air vent with warped panes that wasn't delivering any cool air into the room. I started sweating within three minutes of entering.

The hostel customer support staff, who were offsite at the time, tried moving me to another room in a drab and more isolated part of the hostel that involves lots of doors with locks and stairs, which felt like a code violation to me. (There was a pile of musty shoes outside one door near this alternative room, and it was unclear who exactly this room was located next to.) But the same problem recurred at the new room; it was hot, it hadn't been cooled down, and there was no dedicated AC unit there.

I left, I stayed at another hotel, and I asked Stay 424 for a refund given the significant discrepancy between how the room was advertised as being air conditioned and its actual state. Not only did they refuse to refund me and own the problem, but they didn't even acknowledge the problem; they pointed to their cancellation policy and acted as though I had decided to abandon my stay on a whim. They took the same disingenuous line of argument when I filed a chargeback with my credit card company and I lost the dispute. I've had a lot of nice experiences with indie hostels and inns in the U.S. and around the world, and it sickens me how Stay 424 Hostel handled this situation and got away with it. I basically dumped $254 down the drain. Avoid booking here at all costs!

UPDATE: In response to a few points made by the owner in their response to my negative review...

I booked my room here using Priceline and the listing there from Stay 424 Hostel does not "clearly state that cooling is provided via central air." It simply lists "air conditioning" as an amenity.

Irrespective of how the air conditioning is described on the Priceline listing, my room was sweltering when I arrived and it would have taken hours to cool it to a comfortable point. The second room that I was shown (which the owner describes like some huge and undeserved favor) was hot as well. In both cases, cool air had not been flowing into the rooms via the central air system. This, during a heat wave, is just negligent.

The assertion that I did not allow the hostel team a chance to fix the problem is untrue. I was on the phone with the hostel team extensively. I tried moving to the alternative room. But in this case, the "solution" was not a solution. It was just another very hot room that had not been air conditioned. This is why I chose to leave and find...

The location was pretty convenient—just a short walk from the train station and bus stops—and the shared spaces weren’t bad. Responses to messages were fairly quick.

We arrived around 10 p.m., but finding our room felt like a maze… there were three almost identical doors at the entrance! A few more photos in the instructions would be really helpful, especially for tired travelers after a long trip. The stairs to the room were dark, and with the lights off on the second floor, we seriously wondered if the place was abandoned—or if we’d been scammed.

The bathroom looked clean overall, but the bath mat looked dirty. We asked the cleaning staff if they cleaned the bathrooms daily. He said he cleaned every day. However, the bath mats had stains in the same places every day.

The shower had terrible water pressure, which probably gets weaker the more you use it. Using a lot of water seems to shut everything off, including the toilet. So if a couple of other guests shower in the morning, you can’t really get ready afterward. We ended up using bottled water to wash our faces and brush our teeth.

Wi-Fi kept cutting out. We could connect to the first-floor workspace Wi-Fi, but the signal wasn’t strong.

The shared kitchen on our floor was clean. It’s fine for reheating leftovers from a restaurant. But there was only one small, shallow frying pan, and no small pot for even light cooking. We tried to use the oven to warm up some Chicago pizza, but there were no plates or foil for it. Basically, the oven was just for show.

The lobby was often empty. We could communicate with staff, but they weren’t exactly friendly.

The biggest problem was the air conditioning. You can’t adjust the temperature for each room. All three rooms on our floor are controlled by a single thermostat in the hallway. We were cold and turned it up, but it looked like other guests thought it was too hot.

We stayed for four days, but honestly, it’s not great for a longer stay. One day would probably be fine. Hopefully, there are better options in Chicago at a...

Buyer beware -- I had booked a couple of nights several months ago and then had to cancel my reservation. The policy on their website states that they will issue a full refund if the reservation is canceled more than 14 days in advance and will issue a half refund if the cancelation is done less than 14 days but more than 7 days from the date of the reservation. I got the runaround via email about how their "cancelation policy was changed after you booked your reservation" even though it states the same policy on their website and the official booking confirmation email that I received months ago. It wasn't until I brought up reporting them to the BBB that they issued the half refund and then said they had "already refunded it" -- I checked and it had been done right around the time of their response email, but the wording felt as though they had taken care of it earlier but it only happened after I emailed again. I understand it's inconvenient to cancel an upcoming reservation and I was looking forward to my trip, but it's even more incredibly frustrating that I had to repeatedly advocate for my refund even after citing their own policies. If the policy is updated, the website should reflect that, and their own refund policy should be followed, full stop.

EDIT: I had requested my refund and stated an understanding of their own policy 9/18, was told there was a "glitch" regarding my cancelation(??), said they would resolve it "as soon as possible" on 9/19 and mentioned their policy had changed (despite it still being the same on their own website?,), and it wasn't until I nudged them and stated that I would submit a BBB complaint on 9/23 that my refund was thennnn issued. There should not have been this much back-and-forth had their own policy been honored...