A reader stayed at the Holiday Inn Oklahoma City Airport. He has another prepaid, upcoming stay there as well. But he doesn’t want to return after seeing the condition of the property. He tells me he saw ‘mice poop’ by the vending machines. He shared an example:
The guest asked the hotel to cancel the upcoming reservation, but they refused because it’s prepaid and non-refundable. He asked for a manager to get in touch, but none did. So he reached out to IHG hotels (he’s a Diamond member). And they told him:
- It’s up to the hotel.
- The hotel says no.
- He agreed to the terms and conditions of the rate – non-refundable in the event of mouse poop.
I wasn’t there on property and I cannot tell with 100% certainty what’s seen in the photo. There are irregular dark crumbs of different sizes and shapes. I’m not sure if they’re consistently rice-shaped with pointed ends (what a quick search tells me that fresh mouse droppings usually look like).
Put another way, I can’t prove the hotel isn’t just dirty – which, frankly, ought to be enough reason to release a guest from a future stay commitment. Hotel management apparently won’t speak to the guest about the condition of the property, and that doesn’t make them look better here.
When a guest finds mouse droppings or even just dirt that the hotel won’t say isn’t mouse droppings, it seems to me they can’t really hold a guest to staying there? That’s not what the guest was buying when they made the reservation. It’s not what you see in the photos on the hotel website!
- It seems to me that a hotel chain – the one you’re trusting, and whose brand the property is using – ought to stand behind that.
- Simply saying ‘look it’s up to the property and they say this is good enough’ is not good enough.
I’ve long had the sense that IHG does less to hold their franchisees accountable than others, though Marriott has often seemed to be quickly headed in that same direction. The reader acknowledged agreeing to the hotel’s cancellation terms on the reasonable, good faith belief that the hotel would not “have mice poop” and asks whether such conditions are acceptable to IHG?
Getting nowhere with the hotel and customer service, they say they filed a complaint with the local health department, and that an investigator got in touch with them right away. They then got a call from the general manager.
[G}eneral manager called me up and profusely apologized, saying they’re refunding me the money. …[S]he conceeded that they have a rat problem at the hotel. Not a mice problem but a rat problem.
Holiday Inn Oklahoma City Airport, Credit: IHG
I’m not a fan of prepaid, non-refundable hotel reservations. Plans change! I booked one for the first time in awhile for a meeting last month. There was no way that the meeting was going to change. It got cancelled. I reached out to the hotel in case they were willing to shift the credit to a future stay to hopefully win me as a regular guest. They declined. And I was reminded why I don’t like booking these rates.
Often AAA rates are just as low and prepaid member rates, and fully cancellable. Though increasingly there are ‘no cancel’ AAA rates now, too.
But this guest points to another reason not to book non-cancellable hotel reservations. Something may happen to change your willingness to stay at that hotel. Maybe it’s cleanliness issues you uncover yourself, or reading more recent reviews before your trip. Maybe they close the pool for maintenance. The product being offered can change – and you’re left to fight for your money back if the property no longer works for you. And in the end the health department is probably more effective than IHG as your advocate.
More like, ‘okay-see’ rat poop.
Had a similar experience at a HIE in Pennsylvania. Room was filthy and there were several large (and hungry looking) spiders living on the ceiling. Hotel and IHG refused a refund. Hotels don’t care any more. They just want your money.
@Parker — Not just hotels… *cough* airlines *cough* …really should have air passenger rights legislation in the USA, so that passengers get paid when the airlines screw them over, too.
Guests at the Holiday Inn Oklahoma City Airport have expressed dissatisfaction after finding rat droppings in food from the vending machine. This issue has arisen despite recent renovations at the hotel. The general manager has acknowledged the rodent problem. Still, the hotel’s policy states that refunds for prepaid reservations will be issued only if guests report the issue to the health department.
To improve transparency and enhance guest satisfaction, this Holiday Inn should consider including photographs of the rat droppings on its website advertisements until their rodent infestation is resolved. This proactive approach would not only improve guest satisfaction but also demonstrate the Holiday Inn Oklahoma City Airport’s commitment to providing a clean, vermin-free environment for its guests, especially business travelers who place a high value on such information when planning their stays.
I suspect the guest in question no longer needed the return trip hotel reservation, so went looking for a pretext to cancel a nonrefundable prepaid reservation.
The vending machines are well removed from the guestroom, so there’s no logical connection between debris behind a vending machine and what’s in a guest room.
Further, the area behind, and underneath the vending machine is typically filthy anywhere, for the simple reason vending machines weigh over a hundred pounds, so the areas behind and under them are cleaned in frequently, if ever.
I’m pretty sure in any large hotel you can find something somewhere in the building that is not up to snuff.
This hotel guest intentionally went looking to find fault, and — surprise — found it. Give a dog a bad name, and you may as well hang it.
My mom and dad, who has a TBI, stayed at our local HIE in an accessible room. The toilet was broken (the seat moved sideways while sitting, and the bowl was leaking at the bottom) and when he was in the shower, the grab bar came out of the wall. The HIE sent someone to fix both, but didn’t quite manage to fully fix everything. My mom complained to IHG and got no response. Keep in mind, my dad has a TBI, so one fall on his head and he likely dies. They didn’t even respond to her, let alone comp her the room or even throw a few points at her.
I suspect “Mike” is looking real hard for a reason to assume things about the IHG guest, and posted a bunch of hilarious drivel.
The health department had the final say, and they actually visited the property.
Yes, mice droppings in one place surely indicate the mice are only staying in that one place. <irony
Holiday Inn is pure trash. Good reason to make all your hotel reservations if you can with Amex. Amex charge back twice a year virtually no questions asked. I would never pay that if I had to. Holiday Inn wanted to ban me well nothing was gained so nothing lost in that. Substandard brand, substandard management, substandard employees.
BA if HI is pure trash then your stays at Choice must be 5 start. Amex does NOT do a charge back with out a valid reason. Merchants can and will dispute the charge back as there is not foundation for your reason.
@Mike. Thanks for posting that: it saved me the effort. I wonder if this take is true. We’ll never know. But, in general, that’s going to be the problem with pre-paid, noncancellable reservations. Book a week, but now only need a weekend? Find the hotel equivalent of a “hair in my food” on Sunday and insist on leaving with a refund of the difference. And we all realize some percentage of the “outrage cases” we hear on the web is someone getting caught scamming.
And, there is your problem. Honest folks don’t get the attention/treatment they deserve (like a refund) because there are enough who think figuring out a way to get around the rules they agreed to is a “life hack.”
IHG Customer Service could never do anything (at all) in my experience except sympathize – I was Diamond Elite too, but I quit/fired the IHG brand altogether years ago, after too many glitches and unfixed problems.
What’s up with folks like @Mike and @This comes to mind nearly always shilling for companies over consumers (and workers). Fellas, the ‘little guy’ is not the problem; while you focus on what you perceive to be a petty thief (this guy ‘finding’ a way out of a reservation), the real issue is large-scale, top-down, greed by the wealthiest people and corporations in the world, not a random hotel guest. If the ‘deep pockets’ can’t handle their ‘rat-poop’ problem, then that should fall on them, not us.
A few issues here: IHGs greed. The hotel owner as their customer. And the shift in the past decades toward Indian ownership. Their brand doesn’t assure quality standards, just templates for design and amenities.
Wow. Thanks for the warning.
You should have called the Board of Health. Mice droppings in most states has the Board of Health close down the hotel until the violation is remedy the problem. Not to late to call them.