Comfort Inn Raleigh Midtown

Inadequate night staff

The hotel itself is clean and comfortable, and the day staff is fine. All of our problems were with the inadequately trained night staff.

Due to numerous flight delays, we arrived late, around 3 a.m. The only staff there was the night auditor and the security guard. The computers were running nightly reports, so while the night auditor could see our reservation, he apparently lacked either the training or the authority to get us into our already-paid-for room until the reports finished. After waiting in the lobby for a half hour, with a fussy baby, he informed us that the report he had insisted on continuing had just marked us as no-shows, charged us, and canceled our reservation. He then offered to check us in at the walk-in rate, about 50% higher than we had reserved online, in addition to our reservation that had already been charged. After a half hour of arguing, and booking.com customer service attempting to convince him to honor our reservation, he offered us a slightly reduced rate, but still charging us twice. I informed him that I was going to get my attorney (family members staying in the same hotel) to explain his obligations to him. As I was explaining the situation to my family, at 4 a.m., he called my cell phone to inform me that it had been taken care of, and apologized profusely. I don't know what changed, but it was clear that he was not adequately trained in the hospitality industry, and lacked the authority to override his computer system that every desk clerk who has ever checked me in late has either had or not needed. He eventually made it right, but only after making a very long and stressful day even longer and more stressful. On a positive note, everything else was fine. If they'd just keep an actual hospitality worker on staff at night, this would probably be a 5 star review. I hope they don't discipline him for this, because it wasn't his fault. He was just in way over his head.