Hilton Austin Airport {US-TX}
I did a search and didn't see any reports on this property, so I must be the first FTer to report on it.
I had reason to be in Austin last night, and I wasn't familiar with the Hilton properties there...I decided to try the Austin Airport location, in part because the Hilton.com website description reads "Executive Level with a private lounge area, offering continental breakfast and evening hors d'oeuvres." What the website doesn't mention is that the hotel is brand-new, not open 2 months yet...so I get to the hotel, check in, and ask what floor is the executive lounge, and can I just use my room key to access it. The clerk tells me there is no private lounge - "Uh, we're not set up for that yet...we've only been open since January 10." I got a smallish room, nicely decorated (at least everything's new), with a coveted parking-lot view.
The place was near-empty...the bartender at the bar (restaurant proper is closed mid-afternoon...you have to order and eat in the bar area) told me that a lot of things are still being worked on. The hotel is a revamping of a former administration building for Bergstrom Air Force Base...it's 4 stories, "in the round" with the bar area in the middle of the atrium and all rooms along the periphery. It's certainly one of the more unusual hotels I've been in. The food was mediocre as is standard in most hotels...but the menu is "still being worked on." Housekeeping/room service needs to be worked on as well, as several piles of room service dishes adorned the hallways on the floor where I stayed for several hours, even after I called down to have them taken away.
There's a 24-hour business center with computer use charges at 50 cents per minute.
Austin's new airport (it's new to me, anyway; it opened a couple of years ago) is bland in a kind of gray way...the Hilton's main advantage is that it's right on the airport grounds, and a free shuttle takes you to the terminal in about 2 minutes.
This could be a good hotel in another few months.