Management is dishonest -- beware when staying in this motel. Crux is that they charged us two rooms when we only stayed in one, refusing to refund money when the mistake was on the part of hotel staff.
Full story as follows:
We were on vacation, driving from San Francisco to San Diego along Route 1 during the Christmas holidays. On the night of December 27, we decided to make a stop in San Luis Obispo, CA and find a place to stay. We stopped at the Ramada because we had read positive reviews on Expedia and upon checking with the front desk and finding out that they had one room remaining for the night, we decided to make our reservation (and full payment) on Expedia.
The clerk, named Victor, then found our reservation on his system, confirmed that it had come through, and gave an information form to my boyfriend to fill out, as well as asked for his credit card and ID for their records, which my boyfriend provided. Victor told us that although we booked a King bed room on Expedia, the only remaining room had 2 Queen beds, therefore we would have to take that room, which was no problem for us.
The next morning, we receive a call from the front desk to stop by before we headed out. Upon going to the front desk, they tell us we need to sign the credit card slip paying for our room. We told them that we had already paid through Expedia, and therefore did not understand why we needed to separately pay through credit card. It turned out that after we had taken the room, someone (Victor? The management, AJ?) had created a separate new reservation under my boyfriend's name and marked my Expedia reservation as "no show." Moreover, they claimed that there actually had been a King bed room available the night before that they did not rent out because we had booked the room on Expedia. As a result, they said that we needed to pay for 2 rooms, even though we only stayed in one. They accused my boyfriend and me of holding 2 rooms on purpose, and that we had made both reservations in advance.
Now I don't know the reason why management would do this -- perhaps they are covering up for the mistake that their clerk made in entering a second reservation, or the fact that they gave away the wrong room, or perhaps they regularly defraud their customers. Whatever the reason, they were actively obstructing attempts by me to prove the truth of what had happened the evening before, and at the end of the day, it is simply extremely poor customer service.
• I asked to see the time stamp of the reservation under my boyfriend's name, to prove that we had checked in before the reservation was created. The manager said that his "systems were updating" and would likely take hours, conveniently for him. Therefore, he could not find the time stamp.
• They claimed that Victor could not have possibly made the reservation manually in the computer, that the system does not allow this. Upon looking at the reservation print-out, however, clearly the reservation was made manually because it had multiple typos in the name and address -- the result of someone who could not read my boyfriend's handwriting as he or she entered the reservation.
As we were at the front desk arguing our case, another woman who was having breakfast stopped by and said she had similar problems with the management while at check-in the night before. This type of hotel management and customer service is completely unacceptable for a reputable establishment like Ramada. Beware!
