jetsetter

This was my first time booking and staying at a Club Quarters hotel, although I travel about 2-3 times a month. I felt it would be a comparable value to say Priceline with perhaps a few extra perks.

The Booking Process
I found an Expedia rate for about $95, but I am affiliated with a company that is a CQ member that offered a better rate. However, the CQ web site will only book member standard week day rates. It will not book the discounted weekend and holiday rates which represent a tremendous value such as might be found on Priceline.

Like most chains CQ has a centralized reservations phone number which is (212) 575-0006. When this office is closed, you are prompted for which CQ city you want to book, and then are transferred to the front desk of said hotel. The front desk, apparently not aware of this telephone forwarding practice, kept forwarding me back to the CQ centralized reservations. I was stuck in this loop for about 2-3 cycles.

Finally I got the front desk agent on the phone. First he tried to tell me the hotel was sold out. I did not think this was true since it showed rooms available on the CQ web site. He then agreed the hotel had rooms, and he quoted me a total of 3 rates before reaching the weekend rate that I wanted. In other words, I had to keep prompting him that I wanted the weekend rate before he finally gave it to me. Then he only took my last name, and no other information. I asked him if he needed my credit card number and other details, and he said no. I was advised I had a confirmed reservation, and that it would even be held after 6:00 P.M. without a credit card. The agent really did not want to book this, and it felt like I was really troubling him to complete this transaction. Eventually the room was booked in an unfriendly and cold sort of way.

As a test I also called the centralized reservation number, and selected Boston. At Boston, the front desk also seemed unaware that central reservations forwards calls to the hotels, but they were friendlier in answering my questions about rates.

I travel enough to know this seemed strange so later on I called CQ centralized reservations to confirm. They had no reservation for me, and they transferred me back to the hotel. The hotel said that they had no reservation either. Also at this point the hotel was trying to charge me a higher price than the one they had confirmed earlier on in the day. One agent spoke to another one, and coming back to the line, they told me the first agent thought I was going to call them back to confirm the reservation when it was my understanding it was confirmed. At this point they were closing the door on the airplane I was on, and it made my blood boil! It was not like I could not find another hotel, but just the shoddy rude and incompetent service I had gotten from most all of the hotels front desk agents by telephone. The service from the hotel thus far was one star.

Check In
The plane landed, and I vowed to go to the hotel and straighten it out rather than take the easy way out and say just book a Priceline room. Plus I genuinely wanted to check out CQ since I had never stayed their before. I also felt this should be CQ's mess to fix not mine.

I arrived at the hotel, and after a bit of rankling and again not finding my reservation, they did agree to force the system to honor the weekend rate even though at this point it was technically not available. They actually gave me a slightly lower rate than the agent quoted over the phone. FYI this weekend rate was approximately $75 per night, so that's a good DC value no matter how you cut it! Given how unhelpful they were by phone, I was a little apprehensive that they would not fix this problem when I arrived, but they did as noted. While the error was corrected, they never appologized nor empathized in regards to the trouble I had with the booking and arrival process.

Hotel Room, Location, Services
I was placed in an "executive" which is the smallest room type CQ's offer. All CQ's have these rooms which are called executives. The room had a bed with at least average comfort, a desk, flat screen TV over the desk, clock radio with a cord that can connect to MP3 player (reminded me of the Hilton radio), and wifi. Also at CQ hotels you receive a direct 10 digit phone number where people can call you. Also this would enable one to say forward your phone calls to that number since it would go directly to you or your voicemail if you were out of the room. The air conditioning unit was not the quietest but not the loudest, and I don't think it would have bothered me if I had to keep it on all night. Again, the room was very small, but this was largely psychological. After all, why would one person need all this extra space? It would be perfect if you were not going to spend much time in the room, but I don't know how it would be if there a long time. But again you have your bed, your desk, your bathroom, etc., and its not like your going to pace around a big room anyway. The shower water pressure was adequate which I liked. There is nothing worse than bad (low) water pressure. As noted in other reviews, bathroom very small and only one wash cloth provided which was fine for me staying alone. I did see a housekeeping cart in the hall where I grabbed some extra towels, but I don't know if this is normally available. The hotel provides soap, shampoo, and mouth wash.

It is a good location, but again the Farragut West 17th street exit is closed on the weekends. However, this exit is literally right next door to the hotel. I'm not sure why in Washington people have a fascination or interest in how close a hotel is to the White House, because its not like you can drop by there for a beer or coffee or to say hello to the residents.

One guest went to the front desk in the evening, and wanted to change rooms because they said something had bitten or eaten them. I don't know what to make of seeing this. It made me nervous about cleanliness, but again I don't know what to make of it.

Conclusions
In conclusion, I do think the hotel provides a great value for midweek and weekend stays. If you book through CQ as part of a member organization, you get a discount certificate every business stay. Like other big cities, midweek DC hotel stays (even for a 3* like say a Hilton Garden Inn) can cost you $200-$400. So the CQ represents a great value. The trend right now, June 2006, shows hotel prices very high even for modest accommodations so there can be no question that CQ is a value leader while providing a 2 or 3 star experience.

I was disappointed in the service overall and the level of friendliness of the staff. There was one lady who was very friendly and helpful, but most of the rest of the staff largely was not.

I will try to book the reservations in the future either on the web, or through CQ member services. I suspect that the front desk agents are not really trained in reservations.

I would recommend that you read the Features section of the main Club Quarters web site to learn more about amenities, programs, and services which sound interesting. You can also see the various room types that all CQ hotels offer. CQ does not offer a multi level frequent guest program like chains such as Starwood or Kimpton do.

I would stay here again not because I loved the hotel, but it does offer good value, has a good location, and also they will store your items for about $4 between visits. Also having the direct dial phone number is a cool feature. Its certainly adequate if you mainly need a place to sleep, and its silly to pay $200 or more a night for that if your not going to really enjoy a 3-4-5 star place. I would think long and hard though before booking this if I was going to spend a long time in the room or be entertaining anyone but very close friends. Also the hotel offers larger rooms at higher prices.