Tanisha J.
Yelp
I was in town recently for the Fool In Love Fest held on August 31 - many of the performers (including the act I work with) and their respective entourages stayed here. The stay was excellent, per usual. Of all the LAX airport hotels, Sheraton Gateway has always ranked as one of my favorites - the comfort of the room, the bar, and the outdoor hot tub are all excellent amenities. The gift shop is stocked with an assortment of necessities and creature comforts.
No, the problem was not the stay or the customer service during the stay. My review is based on what transpired after I checked out. The day after the festival, my friend and I made plans to have a proper LA night out. I had two dress options. Once I chose one dress, I returned the runner-up to the closet. En route to the airport (in the convenient hotel shuttle), after checking out on Labor Day, I realized that I left that dress - a slinky chartreuse slip dress with spaghetti straps and a split - in the closet. NBD - I've left items in hotel rooms before and had no issues getting them back - once I left a pair of shoes at a hotel in Seoul and I received them in the United States a week later. I expected this time to be the same. I was badly mistaken.
I called the hotel's lost and found as soon as I landed in Vegas - at about 4:36 the same day, asking if the housekeeper turned in a dress from my hotel room - no was the response. Due to lack of available staff at that moment, the woman I spoke with assured me that she would call me back once she dispatched a housekeeper to my room to doublecheck the closet. However, she reassured me, the room was vacant after I left, so in all likelihood the dress would still be there. Phew.
Morning came without a follow-up call, so I called again for an update and to arrange getting the dress shipped to me. This time Evelyn shared with me that one of the housekeepers claims to have found the dress in one of the trashcans in the room, and he threw it away. Evelyn advised me that this staffer was disciplined, because the hotel's policy is that housekeeping staff should retrieve EVERY personal item - regardless of where it is found within a hotel room - and deliver it to the lost and found.
If I was the last person in the room on Labor Day, and I know the dress was hanging in the closet, then the housekeeper simply could NOT have found my dress in a trashcan!! Given this discrepancy, I was led to the unfortunate conclusion that a member of the housekeeping team that cleaned the room after I checked out kept the dress.
I asked Evelyn how the hotel plans to make me whole, and she said the first step is to file a report with someone from the hotel's loss prevention team. So I was transferred to Miles, he took my information to file the report. The next step after that was to pass the report to Carla, who would determine how the hotel would rectify this situation. That was September 3. In the ensuing weeks, I've been placed on holds to no avail, gaslighted by several of the hotel's customer service reps (come on, who would steal a dress? someone actually asked me that), hung up on, and given the runaround. When one of the hotel customer service reps hung up on me it was when I told him I was calling about a stolen item. So I called Marriott and filed a report with the hotel group's HQ over the weekend. Still no follow-up.
So on September 18, I did two things: filed a police report with the LAPD Pacific Division and then called the hotel's director of rooms, Sergio. I informed him that I was growing weary in my waiting for a resolution. I received a call later in the day. When I finally returned the call the following morning, Sergio informed me that the hotel would be reimbursing me the value of the dress.
Even though we have reached a resolution, I'm still sharing this review because it took three weeks, a fabricated internal report that attempted to deviate from Evelyn's initial statement acknowledging that my dress was mishandled by an employee whether it was stolen or negligently thrown away.
While I have a check for the value of my dress now, what I've lost is the security that when I leave a hotel room to enjoy the city I'm visiting, I never know whether a member of the housekeeping staff isn't looking in my closet thinking of what they may take for themselves. And if I happen to forget an item behind in a room, I'm now forever traumatized that I won't get it back.
Hotels are in the hospitality business and I was treated any way but hospitable.
Long story short. If you forget an item of value at this hotel, you may not see it again without a protracted battle.