adactio/Flickr
You get what you pay for, but in New York City you get even less. Four years after leaving the Big Apple for sunny Los Angeles, I re-learned this lesson after booking a budget hotel room on the Upper West Side with appalling results.
The $145 room – well below normal prices for a Manhattan hotel – had a shared bathroom and lacked amenities. But for one night it would be fine, I reasoned. I had used the same booking site in the past and gained great deals on beautiful hotel rooms. I trusted they would never work with sub-par hotels (Mistake No. 1).
We arrived a few minutes before check-in and noticed that, after each party checked in, an attendant walked them to their room. When it was our turn, a young woman led us through a maze of connected buildings so disorienting that I joked about getting lost. So this is why we were walked to our room, I thought. (Mistake No. 2).
The woman stopped in a narrow hallway and turned the key. No modern card swipes at this hotel. She opened the door and motioned for us to step inside.
I was stunned. The blue carpet was so ancient it was beyond cleaning. The pillows were flat as pancakes. The mysterious smell made me breathe shallowly. A single window blurred by years of muck looked onto an alley. The bed – oh how I was ready for a nap until I saw the bed!
“Do you still want the room?”
I looked at my friend, looked at the woman, and paused. I turned down the sheets and squinted to see possible tiny red spots, a sign of bed bugs. The thin yellowed sheets showed through to the mattress. I did not see any spots, but the light was too dim to erase all doubts.
“We heard there were bed bugs,” I said to the woman.
She shook her head. “The things people write online,” she said. “Disgruntled employees.”
“Oh, okay.”
“So the room is okay?”
No, it was not okay, But I was so ashamed that I had gotten myself into this situation, that I had believed I could get such an amazing deal, that I was too cheap to pony up for a better room in the first place, that I looked at the woman and nodded. (Mistake No. 3)
She closed the door behind her.
“Do you want to stay here?” I asked my dismayed friend.
“Do you want to stay here?”
We both agreed we could suffer a night in the dingy hotel room, but that we really, really wanted a nicer hotel room. We gathered our bags and marched back to the lobby.
“We changed our minds,” I said. “The room is not acceptable. I’m sorry.”
The hotel staff was ticked off. The manager refused to give us a canceled receipt because it was the booking site that was charging us, he said. Arguing was no use. We walked out.
I immediately called the booking site and asked them to refund the $145 charge because the room did not match the online description, to put it mildly. The customer service agent offered me a 10% refund. I politely pushed back. She offered me a $50 credit. No thanks. Manager, please. The manager refused to help a loyal customer and, after more than an hour on hold, my cell phone battery died. The next day I called my credit card company to contest the charge.
Whether or not I end up paying for the hotel room, I’ve learned three lessons. I was greedy, thinking I could find a better price for a hotel room than the millions of other tourists who visit New York City. I made assumptions that got me into trouble and did not recognize them until it was too late. And to top it off, I kept quiet when I should have spoken my mind.
As karmic payback, I booked a ridiculously expensive hotel, slept extremely well, and made free Starbucks coffee the next morning in my room.
Welcome to Bargain Babe! I’m Mara, and I’m so glad you’re here. I am an obsessive bargain hunter and penny pincher, and I am determined to live a full life without EVER paying full price. 
Great story! Guess there are some places where you really cannot get a deal. My recession strategy has been to haggle with a nice hotel until the prices is right. Glad you enjoyed your new room! What was the booking site? are there other booking sites you do recommend!
Using a combination of betterbidding.com, biddingfortravel.com and then taking what you learned to Priceline to bid, you can get an amazing room in NYC. Sorry for the hassle.
@Lysa Thanks for these great tips! I’ll make sure to check them out next time I need a hotel room.
Did you read reviews about the room? We’re going to NYC in a couple of weeks and paid $100 for our room. The reviews seem solid, but not sure how it will be until we get there.
@Ringo No, I did not read the reviews until a few hours before we were going to check in. MAJOR MISTAKE. I hope you read the reviews of your hotel room before you go. If your trip is a few weeks out, you should be able to cancel with minimal financial impact. Did you really find a hotel room in Manhattan for $100???? Where?
Sorry that happened! I’ve been there, with a 3rd party agent, and I didn’t get my money back either. But that’s the good thing about living below your means — you have some spare cash to get you out of such situations.
I stayed at the Best Western Hospitality House in September, booked for $120 through Priceline, and it was great. Free breakfast, comfy bed, good location, lovely bathroom. It’s currently about $230 for the same room through BW.
I’m a former NYer. Hope you are not going to keep name of the site that put you in that hotel…Even if they are cripple and blind , I still hold them accountable….I write up every Hotel, Bar, Resturant, Theater or Service company that took my money and did not give me what I wanted…Don’t be a Wuss..say their name and also the hotel’s name…I can tell you after you finish writing them up, you will feel so much better..If you don’t write them up…every time you retell the story..Someone will ask “What did you do about it?”…and then you will really feel like a Wuss… I have met you, and I know you have the moxie
@William I see your point, but I disagree. This post was not about flaming the dingy hotel, but talking about the process I went through and the lessons I learned. The hotel and booking site are accountable, sure, but so am I. I do, however, plan on writing a review of the hotel on the booking website I reviewed.
Based on the shared bathroom setup and lack of amenities, it sounds like the place you booked is actually a hostel. It’s unfortunate that they didn’t mention that on the booking site. For future reference even if the words “inn” or “hotel” are in the name of the place, if it has shared bathrooms, it’s most likely a hostel. They’re a great budget place for backpackers and students who want to travel the country as cheaply as possible of course, but as you discovered, the rooms are usually pretty shabby, especially in a place like NYC.
My strategy when booking cheap lodging is to Google, Google, Google to find all the pictures, reviews, etc. I can about the place to make sure I really know what I’m getting into.
@N. Davis This place totally had a hostel vibe! It was not clean, however, and many hostels are. I don’t mind outdated as long as everything is clean clean clean!
you should have taken pictures to show them you were miss led and that it was bad to get your money back they cant argue witth proof
@Tracy I wish I had taken pictures!
I wonder if the ‘good deal’ room was part of a bait and switch where you book the cheap/unexceptable room and when you don’t want it, they offer you one at a much higher price, thinking you’ll pay just so you don’t have to look for another room. I’ve had that happen–the lowest price room is never rented, people always choose something better but more expensive.
To commenters: Julia may be waiting to see what sort of a response she gets from the booking site before she names and shames the hotel.
Julia, I don’t think it wrong to have thought you could get a great deal. Lots of places are cutting prices now, and if you’ve had success in the past with this particular website, then you were trusting them.
The delay in rejecting the room should not have changed a thing. If you had accepted it and then checked the sheets and found bedbug traces it would have been the same thing: an unacceptable room.
And since you’re writing about the hotel problem, doesn’t that make it a business expense?
Great story, I love your adventures into the world of bargains and then some…
i am surprised nobody has mentioned TripAdvisor.com – i don’t book a hotel *ever* w/out consulting this site, it’s been very useful to me when looking for the cheapest, *cleanest* hotel i can afford.
@Rosie Palms Thanks for the tip. I’ve heard of TripAdvisor.com but have not used it widely. I will make a note to check it out.
Hostles usually have shared rooms like dorms. I stayed in one in London and there were 6 beds in my room. Each night I had a different set of roomates. The bed had a drawer where you could lock your valuables and travel documents with your own padlock.
I was in NY 3 weeks ago and I went the cheapie route but with much better results. I stayed at the Fairfield Inn, a Marriott, and it was not a pretty hotel but it was very clean and included free buffet breakfast, had the coffeemaker in the room, etc. Not bad for $207/night plus taxes. It’s in the theatre district and I got the deal by signing up for Marriott’s rewards programs and paying for the two-night stay in advance. It was a king sized bed and the room and bathroom were extremely clean and the furnishings were much better than I would have anticipated. I went cheap on a trip there a decade ago but it was not part of a chain (that’s how I learned my lesson to only stick with big chains that care about accountability) and it was the second worst travel experience of my life. It was $250/night, Dec. 30/31, lightly snowing outside and no heat inside and a constant clanging from construction all night long. Since I got back to the room at 2 AM both nights, the night staff did not care and it was truly miserable and my credit card company only reimbursed me for one night despite having copies of the letters I wrote to the hotel manager and a log of the calls to the hotel from my cell phone for both nights and days. There were literally no other rooms available anywhere or I would have gratefully moved
@Dan: A lot more hostels now offer both the traditional shared dorm style rooms and also private rooms with a shared bath. The private rooms have a higher rate.
On my yearly trips to NYC I’ve been staying at The Hotel Alexander on the Upper Westside, which is a wonderful neighborhood. I have stayed there at least 5 times, just stayed there 2 weeks ago. I read reviews on Trip Advisor. As a transplanted New Yorker also living in LA I was nervous the first time, but pleasantly surprised. You can get private rooms with a bath, at a higher rate or share a bathroom. They are in the process of renovating most of the rooms. They also have a large cleaning staff. I highly recommend them.
@Brenda Thanks for the recommendation. I will keep this in mind next time.