Fairfield by Marriott Inn & Suites Wichita Falls Northwest — Hotel in Wichita Falls

I live in Colorado Springs, my cousin & I was in Wichita Falls for a relative’s funeral. We shared a room & split the expense at Fairfield Inn & Suites. I was the one that originally reserved the room using my credit card. Once we were there; we finalized our stay by paying upon arrival because we were only going to be there overnight. The young lady at the desk had never done a split payment, so she asked the manager of the hotel for assistance. Sue is the name of the manager. Sue had to call someone because she said they have never done a split payment. After quite a time standing there patiently & tired from our long drive; my cousin paid her half with a credit card; I asked Sue if I could use another or different form of payment. She said yes and so I used one of my bank’s debit card, just to avoid interest rates of using my credit card. This was on the 16th of July. I never checked my bank to see if it went through because I knew it would go through. On July 21th I get a text from my cousin telling me they charged her card for the entire amount. I immediately called Sue & asked her what happened . She advised me the credit card I gave her the day that we finalized payment did not go through. I told her it was not a credit card, that it was a debit card. She said all she know is that it did not go through. I had forgotten which debit card I gave her, so I reached into my wallet & grabbed one. I only have 2 & they both had plenty of money on them. The next day Sue calls me & says that credit card did not work either. Again I told her that it wasn’t a credit card & there’s no reason on my end that it’s not going through. I asked her if they even accepted debit cards, she went around the question by stating “all I know is that y’all swiped 5 different credit cards and none of them worked but 1 of the cards my cousin used. That was a lie. In actuality I only swiped 1 debit card that day & my cousin swiped 1 card. I had gotten frustrated at this point. I used to be employed at that very Inn before I moved to Colorado in 2017, but under different management. I worked the front desk & at that time we accepted debit cards & done split payments all the time. I know they are working with a different system than it was when I was there, but the fact is that either they do not accept debit cards or there was something in their system that she was suppose to change to let the system know that payment was from a debit card not a credit card. I don’t know but I went ahead and paid with the same credit card I used to reserve the room. I guess Sue was frustrated as well because after I gave her for the last time, the original credit card I used to reserve the room to make payment for my half of the stay and was not swiped that day’s , she sarcastically said “hopefully this one will go through” Being a manager can be a difficult at times but that comment was not professional. I was very offended by her comment because the whole time I was there she was asking me to move back to Wichita Falls so that she could hire me. Some of my relatives that came to the hotel to visit my cousin & I also relayed to us that the manager spoke highly about my personality & how she would hire me with the quickness. And then to insinuate.that I was repeatedly giving her bad credit cards was...

We stayed there for one night as we were passing through on our way to south Texas.

The good: the location is very convenient to the interstate. The entrance to the highway, is like 30 seconds from the hotel. They offer free continental breakfast, but nothing special. They offer the usual, cereal, toast, bagels, eggs, croissant sandwiches, etc. That is it for the good unfortunately.

The bad: Where to start??? Let me preface, that I booked this through Hotels.com, I’ve never had an issue with booking my lodging through them, I’ve been doing so for years. Upon checking in, I let the girl working the counter know that I had a reservation. One would think that if there were an issue with the reservation, she would’ve said something to ME! That was not the case, she told me to put the card on the reader and I had assume it was for incidentals, as it’s always the case. She didn’t say what it’s was for and that is on me for not asking. Then she tells me to put it a SECOND time and this time she said it was for incidentals. I asked her, what the first time was for. She replied that it was the charge for the actual room. I told her that I had already paid and had a reservation. She then tells me, “Well I couldn’t find it, it shows something about declined” excuse me!? And you couldn’t have made me aware of it? Instead, you took it upon yourself to charge me without my knowledge? Then she has the audacity to tell me to just contact Hotels.com myself and figure it out with them. Ummm excuse me? It was her job to call hotels.com and verify the reservation if she had an issue…it’s not like she was busy—other than us, there was no one else there needing help. If she didn’t want to call, at the very least she should’ve made me aware of the issue and I would have called to get the issue resolved. I went up to our room and got a hold of an agent at Hotels.com and got it resolved and they were able to issue a refund. I believe the hotel’s receptionist (the one who charged me without my knowledge) her name is Rosa.

The room: the room was okay, standard two queen room. On the surface it looked clean, however, some of our towels had long strands of hairs…none of which were ours. Our room was next to the highway, which normally isn’t bad. However, this hotel was poorly constructed with very thin and cheap windows. The room was loud…VERY loud. You could hear all traffic as if the windows were open, we checked—they weren’t. Needless to say, we didn’t get any sleep. The door stopper on the door frame, it’s just for decoration! We were able to open the door with the door stopper still in place.

So yeah, that was my stay. I wouldn’t recommend this hotel to anyone. Personally, I will be checking my credit account for fraudulent charges, because I don’t think this was the first time the receptionist did this. She was way too comfortable charging without letting the customer know what she was charging for. I will be freezing my credit card and notifying my credit card company to alert me if future charges on my account. This is not how business should be conducted at all. There is no reason that I should be walking away from a hotel with the fear of being a victim of fraud. I would avoid this hotel...

I am not a huge fan of Wichita Falls, TX. Don't get me wrong, I am sure it is a wonderful place, but as the only reason I was in the city was for a funeral of a cousin I really liked, and there were no flights that could get me there in a day, so I had to fly into Dallas and drive there, Wichita Falls was already not on the top of my lists for places to be. (We shall ignore the fact that I did all of this on about 3 hours of sleep and then spending a day in court for work.)

And the we get to the hotel...

Stumbling in as we did, we were greeted with what seemed genuine smiling faces; not canned ones of someone who just wants you to shut up so their shift ends without complication and they can go home. The rest of the family were in the lobby, watching television. In the lobby... Think about that. They weren't in anybody's room, or at a bar, or at home, or anywhere else. The lobby was comfortable enough that they were sitting there.

The rooms themselves were spacious, with decent amenities. (I don't care how good a hotel claims it is, if I can't iron a dress shirt that has been wrinkled from being piled under all of the luggage in an Air Bus so that I don't look like a shmuck in my suit, you are a bad hotel.) Even the breakfast buffet was good. Or so I am told. I don't do breakfast. Anything beyond coffee in the morning is wasting my time. But the fact that the whole family kept eating there the whole weekend instead of somewhere is says something positive. (Look, say it was free all you want, there are 4 attorneys, 2 doctors, 2 marketing managers, and 2 engineers in that family. If they don't like it, they will go somewhere else.)

Frankly, the best thing I can say about this hotel is that itdidn't feel like a hotel at all. It felt like staying somewhere with the extended family like we used to do, back when we rented condos together for family vacations. And to me, that means it was perfect. Because it felt...