Jamie S.
Yelp
My mom and I went to Chicago this past weekend to celebrate her 70th birthday. I picked this hotel mainly based on the Hilton reputation and the fact that this location was very central to everything we'd want to do while we were there. The stay was great until the last day when I woke up with bites on my arm. I had bed bugs when I lived in New York many years ago and so I was definitely worried about what they might be, but I decided not to think about it and go about our day. However, while lying in bed on the last evening, I FOUND A BED BUG IN MY BED. I repeat, I FOUND A BED BUG IN MY BED. My mom and I immediately trapped it in a glass and called the front desk. Stephanie came up with a maintenance man, who each took one look at the bug and Stephanie immediately said, "We are so sorry and we will move you to another room immediately." Stephanie also said (without me asking) that "of course our stay would be comped for our trouble." She then moved us to another room two floors up, apologizing profusely and saying she would be happy to even find us another hotel if we would feel more comfortable with that, and to let her know if we needed anything else. My mom and I decided to stay.
I received an invoice from the hotel with the complete charges still intact a mere two hours later, so I had to fight this. And I lost, which I'll get to in a moment.
In addition, the manager, Carmen, could not have been more rude or unhelpful about this situation the following morning. She had an attitude with me from the moment we spoke - not offering up a single apology or offer to rectify the situation in any way, just claiming she was having someone come to inspect the room and nothing would be done in the way of compensation until they said whether the finding was positive or negative. When I said that Stephanie had told us our room would be comped, she said, "Well I don't know why she would have said that and I'll have to have a talk with her about telling you that." (Stephanie, I'm sorry if you got in trouble for being helpful and trying to calm my mother and me down. That was not my intention.) Carmen then told me I had an attitude and she "wouldn't entertain speaking to me" - and stood looking at me square in the face, arms crossed. Then she proceeded to tell me she has a lot of manager experience and won't let customers tell her what to do. What??? A manager doesn't even apologize for the situation I'm in and then acts like I'm the one with the problem, acts like a petulant child - and wouldn't even confirm that we had in fact seen bed bugs in the room, AND wouldn't comp my room even though I'd been told it would be the night before. How on earth is this good customer service, let alone the level of service you would expect from a Hilton?
Carmen ended up comping one night of my stay - not the whole stay - telling me she was doing this "in good faith that Stephanie had told me this would happen." She also claimed the findings of the bed bugs were negative. Let me repeat a third time - I FOUND A BED BUG IN MY BED. I took photos of it and of the bites on my arm. This was a bed bug. I don't know what type of company came out to inspect the room, but this was absolutely a bed bug.
I cannot recommend this hotel at all. Once I moved to the new room, I unpacked and checked every single item in my suitcase. I then had to spend time washing and drying everything on high heat once I got home (not to mention throwing the suitcase in the trash) to make sure they wouldn't have traveled and gotten into my house.
I can't believe this happened, especially while celebrating such a milestone birthday with my mom. It left such a sour end to the trip and made me wish I had picked somewhere else to stay. Unfortunately I can't recommend this hotel based on this experience and I would encourage people to stay elsewhere if they are looking for a better level of service and no bed bugs in their room.