Guest User
August 28, 2021
We had a late flight into Des Moines, our brother-in-law called the hotel early evening to let them know our flight would be late and we would be arriving at approximately 12:30am, the desk clerk stated it was no problem as someone would be at the front desk until 1:30 am, when we landed at midnight my husband called the hotel again to let them know we were on our way, he was told the same, no problem as long as we were there before 1:30 am. We arrived at the hotel at 12:40 am and the lobby door was locked, we stood outside and rang the doorbell, knocked and walked around the building for 20 minutes, nobody was there. With all our luggage and, exhausted from traveling, we found a Sheraton that was 10 minutes away from the Sterling that fortunately had rooms available. We returned the next day to the Sterling to check in for the remaining three nights of our reservation. The lady at the front desk was very helpful and assured us we wouldn’t be charged for the night we weren’t able to stay (booked through *******) on our way to our room there was a bag of trash in the pathway and beer cans and cigarette ends along the way. When we got to our room, we noticed rust stains on the front door, inside it was tidy but the door frame was split, there were stains on one of the pillows, a wooded toilet seat (total health hazard) and was generally very rundown, there was no way we could stay in the room. We went to the front desk and told them so, it was a different desk clerk than the morning but again, she was very helpful and gave us the name of the GM, Jose, who was off that day. We moved over to a Marriott for the remainder of our stay. I called the GM, Jose the next day and left several messages for him but he never returned my calls. When I eventually spoke to him the following day he stated we wouldn’t be charged and he had given us a ‘discount’ for the room, he didn’t seem to understand that reimbursing us for the nights we DIDN’T stay was not given us a discount! I asked him, as a courtesy, would he reimburse us for the night we stayed at the Sheraton, or at least pay the difference, he flat out said he would not. My husband called him next and was told he ‘wasn’t available’ same thing the following day, he was obviously avoiding us. I’m looking for their corporate office as I will not let this rest and do not want anyone else to go through a similar experience we did.