This place needs a facelift, wish rewards customers were treated better
14/10/2017 camefromfairfield, Redding, Connecticut
I have been coming here for about four years, as I have children at Penn State. Having achieved Best Western's highest rewards level, Diamond Select, I have used my points for stays here. The last fiv... more
I have been coming here for about four years, as I have children at Penn State. Having achieved Best Western's highest rewards level, Diamond Select, I have used my points for stays here. The last five visits have not been so great.
Firstly, the points system seems messed up. It usually costs about 30,00 points per night for a football weekend (2 night minimum). But upon looking to book a regular Sunday night, it was 39,000 points. This is outrageous for a $100 per night rate. Even though I have the points for a free night, I would rather spend money to stay somewhere else rather than use this many points. Also, upon checking in, there is no special welcome for being a rewards member (no "thank you" or any type of recognition at all. We came to check in and were thirsty, and were charged $2 per bottle of water at the front desk. Other chains would give rewards members or other guests them to you for free, or have water available with the coffee in the lounge. I always request an upper floor when I reserve a room, and have not received this request once in the past two years. I was up all night by someone walking around nonstop in the room above me from midnight until 6am.
The rooms are getting old. The carpets are stained and the wallpaper is peeling off the walls in the bathrooms. Mildew stains on the walls in the bath as well. The air conditioning is very loud. Light fixtures often do not work.
Maid service is usually good however, as my bedding always seems to smell and appear clean.
I like the coffee they have available for guests, but I do not eat the breakfast anymore because I prefer to go to the Waffle Shop instead.
There are better hotels available in State College, but I will continue to come here to use my points if the points value is realistic. less
Vicky B, Guest Relations Manager at Best Western Plus University Park Inn & Suites, responded to this review
Thank you for taking the time to review your most recent stay with us. Our sincerest apologies that you were not recognized as a Diamond Select Member. We always try to give our Diamond Select members a room upgrade, as well as offer an option of drinks and snacks from the market place, or extra bonus points upon arrival. I sincerely apologize that this did not happen and I am arranging a meeting with all the desk staff to address how we should properly greet and treat our valued members. Our points redemption, unfortunately is not controlled at property level so unfortunately depending on the events we had last year in October, it affected how many points would be needed for the whole month of October this year. We hope they will consider making changes to how this is done in the future, hopefully a day to day redemption amount based on our daily rate in the future. As far as location of your room we would be happy to try to accommodate requests at check in depending on what rooms we have available, we do apologize that you had difficulties sleeping due to noisy guests above you. As far as maintenance we have been working on having our carpets cleaned, repainting and fixing wallpaper, we just replaced all of our tvs, and our wifi, as well as some of our in room lamps. We do hope you will consider giving us another try in the future, and we would welcome any further feedback in regards to breakfast so that we may improve it moving forward for all of our guest. We certainly value your feedback and business, as well as loyalty to our brand and we will use the information you provided to better our day to day operations.