La Quinta Inns & Suites review: horrible hotel stay ( 1 comment)

As a hotel employee for a lot of years, I do find some of your complaints a matter of "I want it MY way NOW", and some pretty understandable from the viewpoint of hotel management. Check-in time at La Quintas is in fact 3 p.m. Despite the fact that people show up earlier and demand to be checked in NOW, sometimes that simply cannot be done. The fact you mention about rooms not being clean and you had to wait, as well as the towel situation just tell me the hotel had a very full house the night before. It's a LOT of laundry to do, and not everyone checks out at 7 a.m. so the housekeepers can get to the room "right away". Housekeepers usually do not start until 9 a.m. And, as La Quinta's check-out time is noon, lots of people stay until check-out time. So rooms aren't able to be cleaned until then. The sheets and pillowcases have to be done first so the beds can be done first so the room can be cleaned and readied (it's a vicious cycle of checking people into rooms in which the rooms are clean...) and people can at least check in and relax. I'm sure they were sorry about the towels, but as housekeepers go home by 5 p.m. (sometimes 6!) the towels had been washed and were drying, but it was the DESK CLERKS that had to fold them. While dealing with phone calls, shouting guests, running and fetching for people who don't believe they need to go to the front desk and just ask and receive (most hotels do NOT have 24/7 Housekeeping so yes, you will have to go to the front desk like everyone else). Had you simply gone to the front desk and asked if the towels were dry yet, you would have been told they were, but the front desk person was trying to get them folded. If you didn't need folded towelware, you could have just asked for some to take up with you.
In regards to your "card" being "charged" upon check-in, it was obviously not a credit card, but a debit card. Rooms are not charged until the night audit is done, and then there's something to charge. La Quintas do not check you in, "force charge" your account and then immediately charge your credit card. Once you check out, then and only then is your credit card charged. (Unless you ask specifically for a "zeroed out" receipt under your door. Then they charge you before the invoices are printed so you are getting a receipt with charges for room, movies, etc. and the Payment amount for the total.) Everyone else will get an invoice that shows the charges for the room with a balance due amount. Because their credit card has NOT been charged yet... The fact that you state you "checked my bank account" and the charge was already there indicates you secured the reservation with a Debit Card and not a Credit Card. It probably had a "Pending" reading on your bank statement as well, as the charge had not gone through. If you had to deal with your bank to reverse charges and not your credit card company, well, banks can take 7-14 days to put the money back in your account! So it seems to be a bad case of 1) sold out hotel, 2) people leaving late, 3)limited amount of housekeepers (not 1 per empty room as guests seem to think), 4) TONS of laundry to do, 5) Your early arrival despite the fact the La Quinta web page states a 3 p.m. check in, 6) a long trip on your part, and 7) a foul mood on your part as well (understandable, really), and 8) stay-overs (people already in rooms for a few days) also putting demands on the housekeepers that THEIR rooms are done now, as they're going to breakfast or out and will be back in an hour so they "EXPECT!" their rooms to be clean and ready when they get back. I'm betting most of your hotel stays are better and you have nothing but raving kudos to those hotels, but you just were in the wrong place at the wrong time at the wrong hotel trying to get back together after a tough night. I'm sorry, but it happens once in a while at every hotel.