La Quinta Inns & Suites review: Untrained front desk, threats from gm, getting locked out of our room

This is a complaint about the GM named Mike at the La Quinta in Rifle, CO.

We stayed at the La Quinta Inn room #343 in Rifle CO on 9/13 and 9/14 for a wedding that was in town. Before arrival, I had booked over the phone and confirmed with the front desk lady that they accept checks as a form of payment. Upon arriving on 9/13, I spoke with the front desk lady and again confirmed that checks were okay, and told her about how my wallet had just been stolen so checks were the only option, hence why I confirmed twice. I wrote a check, the two ladies at the front desk worked together to run it through the machine because neither one of them knew how to work the system. I also payed $100 in cash for the damage deposit. They said the check had gone through, put it in the register, checked me in and gave me my room keys. We unloaded all of our wedding stuff in the room, and went to the dress rehearsal which was about 30 minutes away.

At about 8:30pm that night, while we were still at the rehearsal dinner (we were in the wedding party), I received a call from an Indian man named "Mike" who was the GM of the La Quinta. He informed me that they in fact do not accept check, and that I needed to pay for my rooms right away or I would be canceled and kicked out. I informed him I was 30 minutes away at a wedding rehearsal dinner that I didn't want to leave, but I would be back later and would bring cash to pay for my rooms. He reluctantly agreed to wait for me and was very rude on the phone about this. It was not my fault, as they even ran my check and kept it, however I stayed polite and got back as soon as I could.

Upon arriving back to the hotel about an hour later, we discovered that our key cards did not work in our door. All of our personal property was in our room that I had payed for, and we were locked out. I went to the front desk where the same two girls were. This time they told me checks were "actually not acceptable", and I needed cash. I told them I would need to go get more cash, since they would not allow me to use the $100 cash I had already given them for the deposit, to which they responded "okay but if you don't get back in an hour, we will have the police remove your stuff". They also refused to give me back my check, even though they would not accept it as payment. It immediately escalated to the point where I demanded at least my check back, and told them I would be leaving my room and staying somewhere else as this was unacceptable treatment. The biggest issue at this point is they had locked our personal property in the room without telling us. They finally let us back into our room at this point, where we started to pack our stuff. As we were in our room, our room phone rang and it was the GM "Mike" from earlier. He immediately started yelling at my girlfriend and violently threatening her that he "would call the cops and charge us for trespassing" if we would not go down right now and pay for the room, and that we were not allowed to leave and stay somewhere else. He literally threatened to have our property confiscated.

At this point, the Groom of the wedding (my best friend) was involved as we told him the situation, but he told me he would pay for me to stay at least that night, because it was required for the wedding party to stay in this specific hotel. We reluctantly agreed, and went back down to the front desk where the Groom put our room on his card. My girlfriend and I asked to speak with the GM, but were told that he was at home, and that he had called our room from his home to threaten us out. We gave up, bit the bullet and had no more confrontations with those first two ladies.

We ended up staying the second night as well, since the entire wedding party was literally in that hotel and we didn't want to miss anything. Upon check out, I very politely asked a new front desk lady if I could have the name of the GM, to which she replied "we cannot give out that information". So the only information I have is his name is Mike and he is of Indian race.

This would have been a very simple issue to solve if the GM would have been even slightly professional at the beginning to apologize for the check issue, and ask nicely for payment. Instead, we got violently threatened, yelled at, locked out from our personal property, and frankly harassed by the GM over the phone, and treated like criminals by the front desk attendants. Unless it is required for work or wedding, I will never stay at a La Quinta Inn again, even though the ones in Denver have never given me trouble. This was the worst Hotel experience I have ever had.

I would like a refund and a confirmation that this GM "Mike" has been talked to and reprimanded for such abhorrent behavior towards guests.