Quality Inns have changed
 

Introduction We have used Choice Hotels for our travel needs for years since we travel with our dog. This past week we stayed at a Quality Inn in White Georgia and 234 N 78 St Missouri and both hotels were expensive, rooms were dated and dirty with floors and bathrooms needing a good scrubing. No customer service served with an attitude. Tried RedRoof for the first time and had a wonderful experience including no cost for pets, half the cost and a takeout breakfast due to the Coronavirus shutdowns. We are switching our travel needs over to RedRoof Inn.

Quality is a brand that has a wide range of experiences. Some properties are excellent, and some are not that great. Some are overpriced and some are a great value. I suggest checking the reviews of the individual property. In my experience, Red Roof is the same way. Safe travels and best wishes.

Sumter quality inn has terrible management service!
 

I am very dissatisfied with the service I received, from both Quality Inn of Sumter as well as the choice help center. It is sad that I had to wait since Feb 14th for someone to say my paperwork is not valid when I was told time after time i was double charged and should fall off in a week. Here it is 2 months later. For all this trouble I would like to request the FULL refund. Both charges. I come here all the time and I HAVE never been through so much BULL! I was very patient with both parties, If this matter is not taken care of I will just have to keep going up until something is done! $117.02 is what I would like refunded. I don't feel this hotel service is worth me coming back. I know it may not hurt the company from one person, but I have no problem informing people of how terrible the MANAGER is! I have never been so pissed in my life for people to try to make me out to be the bad person!

Gosh, you are correct. I authorize the full $117.02 refund.

There's no real quality control at Quality Inns.They can be OK or appalling. You take your chances. I don't see how you can make a blanket judgment that "Quality Inns have changed" when there's no consistency. But they are very often the older, unrenovated, downmarket alternative to Comfort Inn and Sleep Inn.

Our sincerest apologies for the delayed reply to your message. If you still need assistance, my team would be happy to take a look. When you have a moment, please send us a private message with your stay information. Please include the name on the reservation, confirmation number, date of arrival, and hotel address. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. Hope to hear from you soon! -Taylor

Hi there! Our apologies for the delay! Thank you for taking the time to share your experience at one of our trusted brands. We strive to provide our loyal guests with great accommodations and service. From the sound of things, it seems like something went wrong, and I'm sorry to hear that. My team would like the opportunity to address any specific experiences you had. We want to help. Please send us a private message with all the details of what occurred and include the hotel address, confirmation number, date of arrival, and name on the reservation. Hope to hear from you soon. -Taylor

Quality Inn is a conversion brand. Some of them are nice and some of them are shady. The latter makes you wonder how the hell can the city's health department keep them alive. Having stayed in both a Comfort Inn and a Quality Inn as a little kid, Comfort Inn at least knows what standards are. I've seen Quality Inn (online, maybe in person) take over the exterior-corridor Fairfield Inn/Hampton Inn hotels because they no longer meet standards.

While Quality Inn is a conversion brand, Choice seems to at least heavily encourage renovations before permanently flagging as a Quality Inn. I stayed at a Quality Inn in Plano (Plano East - Richardson) that was a conversion from an independent hotel, but the entire interior appeared to have had a major renovation and now looks quite modern inside. There's been a couple other ones that I've stumbled across that appear to be in a similar position. I don't know if it's recent, and there's certainly some very downmarket Quality Inn locations, but it seems like there's still some standards to their conversions.

The two that have been most spotty for me when looking at reviews are Clarions and Rodeways. Both of these seem to be much more targeted as non-remodel conversion properties, and I've even stumbled across a Rodeway that used to be an Econo Lodge - not sure why the brand change was made. If the reviews and pricing are similar, I'd pick a Quality over a Clarion, and an Econo Lodge over a Rodeway.

For me, reviews are way more important than which brand. If reviews are similar than it is a toss up.

Why compared Quality to Clarion? Isn't Clarion the closest thing to a high-end brand from Choice?

Cambria and Ascend are the two brands that Choice considers its highest-end ones, at least based on their website. Cambrias, as far as I can tell, all are purpose-built, while Ascend are properties that want to keep their individual identities, while still being able to use the Choice booking portals and loyalty program to grab customers who either are loyal to Choice or wouldn't stay at a fully-independent hotel. Ascend hotels are a bit more variable, but from what I've seen Cambria hotels are consistently well-kept and higher-end in their furnishings and decor.

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Clarions are in the same "Get More Value" section that Quality is, and in my searches Clarions seem more variable, at least on the amenity side, than Quality Inns. There's some nice Clarions, but there's also some that go below many Quality Inns. Clarions are likely a bit more business-oriented: they tend to have more conference rooms than a Quality Inn, or even are a conference center, and they'll often have an on-site restaurant and sometimes not include breakfast in the standard room rate. However, they still seem to be at the same brand standard level as Quality - looser brand standards, but still some to uphold, and more upscale than a roadside motel.

And why Clarion Pointe? That's another sub-brand.

Clarion locations tend to be de-flagged full-service hotels. Many of them are older, de-flagged Holiday Inns, Raddisons, etc. Some have had only minor renovations, and some have been updated nicely. There are a few locations on my list that I like to stay at because they have decent rooms, a decent rate, a great full breakfast buffet, and a fun bar/lounge area. Cambria hotels are exceptional in quality, comfort, and style. The bars lack the atmosphere and uniqueness of some Clarion bars, but they are really nice and consistent. Also, Cambria seems to have the most perks for a Choice Diamond.

In Santa Ana CA, the Comfort Suites reflagged to Clarion when they were remodeling their lobby building and got rid of the breakfast buffet, and then reflagged to Comfort Inn & Suites when they got a breakfast room (in a different building).

In nearby Costa Mesa CA, a two-story no-elevator motel rebranded from Comfort Inn to indie Blvd Hotel several years ago, did a bunch of room & lobby building upgrades as a result, and then came back a year or so ago as Blvd Hotel, an Ascend Collection property.

So a Clarion can be a reflagged external corridor Comfort, and an Ascend can be a two-story motel with nicely remodeled rooms. But that doesn't make either of them consistently "high-end" in my book.

But something to keep in mind is that this new category of "boutique" hotels (that Ascend claims to be in) is not anywhere on the "low-to-high-end" scale; it's off to the side on its own. So you can't use the categories from 25 years ago to explain all hotel brands today.