WARNING - Hotel Ocean, Miami Beach, FL
I wanted to get this out there in hopes of saving someone else from the great deal of aggravation this caused. DO NOT EXPECT ANY POINTS RESERVATION TO BE HONORED BY THIS HOTEL!!!! If you have a pending points reservation I highly recommend getting another room. You will be denied a room! I wish I could leave a review on Choicehotels.com, but I can not due to reservation cancellation. Hopefully this will show up in a google search.
The Hotel Ocean, An Ascend Hotel Collection Member located at 1230 Ocean Drive in Miami Beach, FL 33139 refused to honor a points reservation. The front desk indicated the manager is not honoring any points reservations. No one bothered to reach out in advance from either Choice or the hotel directly. I found out when I arrived to check in that they were not honoring my reservation and was told I had no room. This left me in South Beach at 7:00 PM on a Thursday night of spring break and music festival week without a room. Needless to say I was not happy. The front desk was useless and rude, Choice guest relations was of no help. Spent nearly 2 hours on the phone (5 different people over multiple calls) with no resolution and frustration building. The best they could do was a room at the airport, at my expense. I was even hung up on by a Choice guest relations person after asking for a cancellation number, real professional! The front desk could not provide one either. The ironic part of this was the points were still out of my account, no one could provide a cancellation number yet I could not get a room. After I realized trying to stay at this poor excuse of a hotel was not going to happen, from either Choice or their staff, I started pursuing a cancellation number to ensure my card was not charged and that points were refunded. Nothing would have angered me more than a no show charge on my card.
In 20 years of travel, and 75 - 125 nights a year in hotel rooms for work, I have never been treated this way by front desk staff or customer relations. As a Choice Diamond member I am even more shocked. After this experience, I am done with the Choice Hotel chain permanently. I know there are tons of "I'm done with XXXX" on FT, but after this experience I am done! With so many other hotel chains to choose from, Choice is a NO CHOICE for me.