When people want to stay at a hotel, they have a wide variety to choose from. Typically, location, reviews, and price (money, points, etc.) are all taken into consideration before deciding where you’ll stay.
Unfortunately, sometimes the hotel gods aren’t on your side. Maybe, for some reason, you can’t stay at your first choice of hotel and get stuck with a place that’s not as good. Sometimes you’re pressed for time and don’t read reviews like you should. And sometimes all the possibilities for winding up in a crappy hotel snowball and you wind up in a situation like the people in today’s story.
TikTok user @flaminghotttcheeto/Dragon and her companion were going to a wedding and, because of reasons, wound up staying at a Quality Inn in Richmond, VA. Their room was ridiculously horrible, with:
- A cigarette butt on the floor of their (non-smoking) room
- Broken security lock on the door of their room
- Loose banister on their 3rd floor balcony
- Office chair on their balcony
- Mystery reddish-brownish stain on the seat of the chair in their room
- Trash bag wrapped around the smoke/fire detector in the room
- Broken drawers in the room’s dresser
- Something that looked like pubic hair on the toilet
- Ceiling lights held into place with bags
- No lock on the bathroom door
- Loose water spigot in the tub
- Unfinished patched hole in the wall (at the perfect height for a fist)
- Sample-sized liquid soap was half-empty/previously used
- Burn holes in the sheets and blanket
- Pink stain on the sheet
- Another guest’s half-eaten food in the room fridge
- Air conditioner filters that looked like they had never been changed or cleaned
- Room phone had no wire to connect it to the wall outlet
- Elevator not in service (remember, they’re on the 3rd floor)
Here’s the video of their room (heads up that this and the videos following it may be NSFW due to adult language):
@flaminghotttcheeto And yes, i was refused a refund because the room was clearly cleaned 💕 @qualityinnsuites #qualityinn #hotel #virginia #virginiaisforlovers #vacation #vacationfail #funny #joke #comedy #hotel #hotelfail #fyp #foryou #foryoupage
But it wasn’t just their room that was bad. They apparently also did a tour of the rest of the hotel and discovered:
- The ice machine didn’t work (but there was a bar of soap in the ice machine. Maybe to clean it???)
- A man sleeping in the hallway (they left him bottled water)
- The sign that said the hotel had been CONDEMNED by the Fire Marshal in August, 2023 (the video was made in December, 2024)
- A table holding a microwave was about to fall apart
Here’s their video #2:
@flaminghotttcheeto Replying to @🦜 🦚 Teresa 🐦 🐦⬛ #fyp #qualityinn #hotel #virginia #virginiaisforlovers #vacation #vacationfail #funny #joke #comedy #foryou #foryoupage @qualityinnsuites #part2 #continued
Not surprisingly, the TikToker and her companion didn’t want to stay at the hotel. So she went to the front desk, said she wanted to check out and wanted to be refunded.
“They said that it was cleaned and that they do not do refunds, and that I had to talk to a general manager to get a refund,” she recalls. ”So, I asked to talk to a general manager, and they would not let me.”
Meanwhile, she got in touch with a friend who was renting an Airbnb in town, so she and her companion left and stayed there for the night.
But she still wanted her refund. And really, who could blame her?
So @flaminghotttcheeto/Dragon called her bank, PNC Bank, to dispute the charge. They told her the hotel hadn’t checked her out of her room. So she called Quality Inn’s parent company, Choice Hotels and they said the same thing – they couldn’t refund her because she hadn’t been formally checked out of the hotel.
“I think it’s because if I stay for the full length of the stay, then…I can’t dispute the charge with my bank and I can’t get a refund through corporate,” she speculated on Video #3. “So as long as I’m checked in, corporate cannot give me a refund or refund any of my rooms, is what they’re telling me.”
She also said she was given the name of the general manager, but the manager hung up on her twice when she attempted to call.
While she admits that the hotel was cheap ($57 per night), she thought it was a Thanksgiving special because people wouldn’t want to be staying in Richmond at that time of year. She also said that she read reviews for the chain and thought they were fine – but it turned out she was reading reviews for Quality Inn in general, not that particular Quality Inn (which has gotten really crappy reviews for months).
Here’s video #3:
@flaminghotttcheeto Replying to @Ashlyn V @qualityinnsuites #fyp #qualityinn #hotel #virginia #virginiaisforlovers #vacation #vacationfail #funny #joke #comedy #foryou #foryoupage #part2 #continued #hotelfail #answeringquestions #explained
The aftermath
@flaminghotttcheeto/Dragon did make one more video, explaining that after her stay was officially over, the hotel did check her out. She immediately put the charge into dispute but because she had no proof that she had physically left the hotel days earlier, she only “may or may not” get her money back from the bank – AND it would take up to 90 days to process.
Choice Hotels was of no use whatsoever when she called their corporate offices; they said she would have to talk to the hotel manager.
She also tried to talk to the manager of the hotel one more time. The person at the front desk said the manager was on holiday (vacation) and would be gone for the next 3 months. Here’s video #4:
@flaminghotttcheeto Replying to @Jen stick sround for 90 days and find out where this goes i guess 🤟 #fyp #qualityinn #hotel #virginia @qualityinnsuites #virginiaisforlovers #vacation #vacationfail #funny #joke #comedy #foryou #foryoupage #hotelfail #update @Choice Hotels
So for now, @flaminghotttcheeto is out the entire cost of her hotel room.
Well, maybe.
Apparently Choice Hotels got wind of her story, and, in the comments to video #4, asked her to contact them.
She hasn’t given an update video since, but hopefully everything worked out for her.
I hope she at least contacted the fire marshal to let them know the hotel that they condemned was still open for business.
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