Let’s get this out of the way up-front: this post isn’t about Zombies, or their rights. It *is* about putting an easily found record on the web about a particularly skeezy hotel that ripped me off while I was out and about traveling on behalf of Zombie Rights, and the large corporate hotel chain that helped them do it.

Yes, I am using the ZRC’s web reach to punish them. They deserve it. Read the following and I think you’ll agree. If you’re not interested though, by all means, skip this and read the surrounding posts about Zombies. I also don’t want anyone to think I didn’t have a great time on our trip to the Great Debate at the University of Houston-Victoria. I did! Just not the part at this hotel.

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I was going to be traveling on ZRC business to Victoria, Texas, and so I reserved a hotel room well in advance. I had been told that it was difficult to get rooms in town and that they were often full-up in places. The university, through no fault of their own I’m sure, recommended the Best Western, so that’s what I went with.

This Best Western, in particular.

Immediately when making the reservation I was struck by the price. 150 dollars a night, plus taxes, for a Best Western? Wow. I’ve stayed at nice hotels in NYC and Chicago for less. For one ZRC trip we stayed at the Intercontinental by O’Hare for a lot less than that. (That, btw, is a scary nice hotel).

Still, I went ahead and made the reservation. It seemed important to pick a hotel that was easy to get to and from, and that my local contacts would know the location of in case I got lost or something.

I checked in that day and went out for the debate, which was followed by dinner and such, and then I returned to the hotel. I was bored and hadn’t brought a lot to read so I spent some time in the lobby reading their magazines, and watched the hotel turn away other people, since they were fully booked, and be further unable to find the prospective clients a room anywhere else, because supposedly every other hotel in town was fully booked.

So I felt lucky to have a room when I went back up to mine and sat down at the desk to do some phone-blogging. Until I saw the cockroach that had crawled in while I was gone and apparently died on the spot.

I call him Westy, after the hotel chain.

Naturally, this did not please me, so I went downstairs and talked to the clerk at the desk. There didn’t seem to be a night manager per se. She claimed to be sorry, but mostly she seemed embarrassed. At the time I thought it was because a guest had found a roach in their hotel room, but now I realize the truth probably is that she was embarrassed because guests are *always* finding roaches in their hotel rooms at this Best Western.

She told me that there was, basically, nothing she could do. The hotel was full, and every other place in town was full. She never offered a refund or even a cleaning, not that it would make me feel a *lot* better, given the old rule that there are 10 roaches for every 1 you see. But she did assure me that I could speak to a manager in the morning. I insisted she leave a note for that manager stating that I wanted to meet with them, and she claimed to do so.

Now I had two choices. It was around freezing that night in Victoria, but I could try sleeping in the car. Or I could stay in the hotel and deal with it in the morning. Taking the desk clerk at her word, I decided not to try and tough it out in the car. I hadn’t even brought winter clothing, let alone blankets, so staying outside seemed like a bad idea.

Turns out I should’ve taken my chances.

I spent a good half hour searching all my bags and clothes for more roaches, taking the bed apart, looking under the furniture. Then I went to bed, slept fairly poorly for my trouble.

In the morning I got up and desperately wanted to take a shower or a bath, or both, and got my second surprise: that wasn’t happening either. Because whenever I turned on the water in the bath, bugs crawled out of the drain. Spiders, beetley things and the like.

I got a picture of just one of them.

So instead, still sweaty and a bit miserable, I simply packed up and went downstairs to talk to the manager.

Only she wasn’t there. She’d ditched me. Supposedly to go to ‘lunch’ at about 10 in the morning.

The note, obviously, did not have its intended effect… on my part. I get the feeling it did on theirs, and that what was actually written was along the lines of, ‘Angry customer in 202 found another of those roaches. Stay hidden in back tomorrow morning.’

Could I talk to anyone, I asked? No. Could the woman on duty do anything? No. Any idea when the manager would be back? No. Could they call her? Surely she has a cell phone? No. On and on it went. I had a flight leaving in 4 hours and a 2 1/2 hour drive, plus airport security, to get through. They knew this and didn’t care. I told them I’d be in touch and left.

Which is, it seems, what they counted on.

I got home and my mother, who used to work in travel, said she’d deal with it, so I handed the information off to her. I had other problems. You see, I’d gotten sick. Strangely sick. I was having regular, severe nosebleeds. I hadn’t had a nosebleed in years before this trip, and these ones were bad, and even hurt, oddly enough.

After about a week she told me that she wasn’t having any luck; Best Western corporate wouldn’t deal with her, and the actual hotel wasn’t either. So I took it back over and set to work venting my frustration and attempting to get my money back.

That’s when the fun really began.

Best Western corporate, you see, cannot, and will not, do a thing. All customer complaints no matter the nature or severity are simply referred to the hotel you make them against. If the manager of a hotel breaks down your door at 3 am and sets fire to your things, Best Western wouldn’t care. It’s the local hotel’s responsibility.

But every time you DO talk to corporate they sign you up for another spam email survey asking how your stay was. Not making that up.

So I had to talk to the same hotel manager who’d ducked me the day of my stay. Get this: she insists, simultaneously, that the room was ‘clean’ and that the roach problem concerned her so greatly she had exterminators immediately called in.

Oh, and to make up for my trouble, she’s offering me DOUBLE BEST WESTERN REWARDS POINTS.

I start calling the hotel, and I get different stories, depending on the day, but they evolve in a general direction. The hotel room is clean despite the bug infestation. The cockroach must have invaded the room, from the outside. Oh, and they very regularly spray the room, with extremely potent poison, which is what killed the cockroach.

Really? I ask. What poison? Was I exposed?

No answer. Suddenly all the nosebleeds start to seem more worrisome.

I’m sick of talking to this woman so I start calling corporate again. They give me the same song and dance, but promise to get back to me on the issue of pesticides. They don’t.

So that’s where the issue stands currently. Best Western Corporate is ducking me. Best Western Victoria Texas is ducking me. I can’t even get the name of whatever awful pesticide they exposed me to, which may have made me quite sick, though, *finally*, the nosebleeds are trickling to a stop, two weeks afterward.

And of course, they still have my money. I’ve contested the charge with my credit card, and am hoping that will be more productive.

My advice? Run, don’t walk, away from Best Western. The chain has no interest or ability to supervise their hotels, which apparently can be full of pesticides AND cockroaches and other bugs. Nobody cares. Sleep in your car or the hallway if you don’t like it. No refund, not even an attempt at a sincere apology. At best they might give you some rewards points or a few bucks back off the room. Once you’re safely back home, thousands of miles away, of course.

And of course, if you get sick, potentially as a result of staying in their hotel? They couldn’t care less.

Brother.

Hotel information (to increase chances it will come up in a Google search):

BEST WESTERN PLUS Victoria Inn & Suites
8106 NE Zac Lentz Pkwy, Victoria, Texas 77904-3129
Phone: 361/485-2300 | Fax: 361/485-2306

Manager’s email (because why not): 44562@hotel.bestwestern.com

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This entry was posted by John Sears on Wednesday, December 14th, 2011 at 3:15 pm and is filed under ZRC News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.