I booked a hotel being used as a homeless shelter by mistake. Now what?

What if you used an online booking agent to reserve a hotel, but when you arrived at the property, you discovered it was being used as a homeless shelter? It happened to this solo female traveler, and she wants you to hear her tale.

Editors note: This travel fiasco comes from our archive files and was last updated and fact-checked on Aug. 3, 2024

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Maria Telegdy’s photos from her stay at a Relax Inn would make for a disturbing novel. She found the hotel in a shocking state of disrepair and also being used as a homeless shelter.

Telegdy’s case demonstrates the need to keep calm, even when you know you’re being ripped off. And it’s yet another cautionary tale about making nonrefundable hotel reservations through a third-party booking agent.

While planning a trip to Georgia to visit a friend, Telegdy decided to use Hotwire’s “Hot Rate” feature to book her seven-night hotel stay. This mystery reservation system had worked for her in the past with fairly good success.

Hotwire Hot Rate mystery hotel deals

Hotwire describes the Hot Rate bargains as “amazing deals that, once purchased, cannot be canceled, exchanged, refunded or changed.” These reservations require prepayment, and travelers don’t discover the hotel where they’ll be staying until booking is complete. 

Telegdy chose a two-star hotel in the general neighborhood she wished to stay. She noted that the description of the unknown hotel said “Quality Inn or similar.” After booking the mystery deal, Hotwire revealed the hotel as a Relax Inn, and that was fine with her.

That is until she got a real-life look at the hotel.

A two-star hotel… or a homeless shelter?

On the day of check-in, Telegdy, who was traveling solo, arrived at the Relax Inn late in the evening. She was less than impressed with its location in a seedy area and an adjacent adult bookstore. Feeling tired after a long day, she hoped the look would look better from the inside.

It definitely didn’t.

“It was rundown — inside and outside,” Telegdy recalled. “But I knew I booked a nonrefundable rate, so I intended to make the best of it.”

But then the hotel’s desk clerk told her that the room she’d booked had been given away to a “long-term renter.” She realized that the hotel was being used as Section 8 temporary housing… a homeless shelter.

Telegdy was already familiar with the Section 8 housing program that issues vouchers to homeless people to be used at various hotels that accept those coupons.

“In September, Hotwire sent me to a hotel in Phoenix that was also being used as a homeless shelter. I didn’t mind,” she recalled. “That hotel maintained itself well and had separate wings for long-term guests and regular short-term travelers. But things were quite different at this Relax Inn.”

While she waited for someone to find her an available room at the hotel, she says there was a lot of commotion that sounded like arguing among other guests. The air in the lobby was stale. People were milling around smoking, and Telegdy was getting increasingly concerned about what was going on at this property.

A “deplorable” hotel room

Eventually, the hotel manager arrived and confirmed that they did have space for her. Given what she found when she entered her assigned room, she soon wished they hadn’t.

Telegdy says the hotel room was “deplorable” with “smashed bugs on dirty walls, peeling wallpaper, filthy vents and a disabled smoke detector.”

Telegdy suffers from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), which can make it difficult to breathe. So when she smelled cigarette smoke coming from outside her room she knew that she would be unable to complete her stay.

That night, she slept with a scarf over her nose and mouth to avoid the smoke that continued to seep into her room. The next morning Telegdy informed the front desk staff that she would not be staying the additional six nights. She snapped some pictures of her awful hotel room and then left to stay with a friend.

However, she neglected to contact Hotwire and inform the company about the conditions at the hotel. That oversight would prove to be a problem when her expected refund didn’t materialize.

The homeless shelter aspect of the hotel isn’t the issue

When Telegdy arrived home, she called Hotwire to find out how to get the refund quickly processed for the six nights she didn’t stay at the hotel. To her shock, a Hotwire agent told her that it wouldn’t be possible. He referred her back to the non-refundable terms of the Hot Rate deals and rejected her request.

To say the agent’s response infuriated Telegdy is an understatement. She began a vigorous campaign to get her money back from Hotwire and the terrible hotel. Unfortunately, she used tactics that rarely lead to success for consumers hoping to resolve a problem. She admits that she was so incensed that she lost her temper and cursed at the customer service agents.

Her letters also reflected her anger and included many extraneous details; including the part about the hotel being used as a homeless shelter, even though she admits that wasn’t really the problem with this property.

“I was unable to rest; too much smoke came into my room, and there was no smoke detector,” Telegdy complained. “The ventilation system was not functioning in the room or in the bathroom, and the place was filthy. This is not a place for tired travelers.”

The fact that guests were smoking outside and inside put her health at risk, she explained to multiple customer service agents.

Then she informed Hotwire that she would never be using them again. This type of threat almost always backfires for the consumer, with the company losing interest in helping a former customer.

Not surprisingly, none of this led to the refund Telegdy was hoping to receive.

An unsatisfactory resolution

When Telegdy’s complaint letters only resulted in Hotwire offering her a $25 future travel voucher, she turned to our advocacy team for help.

That $25 voucher just added insult to injury. As I look at it, this won’t cost them anything especially if I am never using them again. I have traveled the world and not even in the backwoods of Africa have I slept in a place as bad as this hotel. Can you help me?

I certainly hoped we could. The photos and description of her brief stay at this hotel convinced me that she had no choice but to hit the eject button.

Related: Why did Travelocity make me pay for a permanently closed hotel?

Reaching out to our executive contact at Hotwire, I included Telegdy’s photographs of her room showing exposed lightbulbs, dirty walls and vents, falling draperies, and that disabled smoke detector. I didn’t ask Hotwire about Telegdy’s belief that the hotel is being used as a homeless shelter because, ultimately, it does not matter. Every guest is entitled to a safe and clean living environment regardless of how they are making payment for their stay.

Telegdy’s photos clearly show that this property does not provide a clean or safe environment.

Asking Hotwire to reconsider this refund

…When she checked into the hotel, she found it intolerable. She found the room smoky, loud, unclean and the smoke detector had been disabled and had no battery.  Maria also says the ventilation system was dirty, which caused a problem for her due to her COPD.   She stayed one night and checked out because of the awful conditions of the hotel. When she called Hotwire and asked for a refund, she was offered a $25 future travel voucher.  She would like to receive a refund for the 6 nights that she was unable to stay.  She did provide pictures of some of the conditions of the room which I am including with this email.

 The hotel does not appear to meet Hot Wire’s standards. Can you please review her case and see if you agree?

Thank you!

Michelle Couch-Friedman, Consumer advocate

And soon Telegdy had the refund she had been requesting for weeks.

The good news

After our executive contact at Hotwire reviewed the photos and confirmed with the hotel that Telegdy had stayed just one night, her refund was approved.

The Hotwire executive thanked me for the photos and agreed that this hotel must make changes. However, she also pointed out that Telegdy should have called Hotwire as soon as she discovered the significant problems at the hotel. Making that call would have allowed Hotwire to rectify the situation immediately by moving Telegdy to a more suitable hotel.

Telegdy is pleased with the outcome and says she may use Hotwire again. But she won’t take her chances on any more mystery hotel deals. This experience taught her that she prefers to keep her mysteries inside the novels she reads, not the hotels she travels to.  (Michelle Couch-Friedman, Consumer Rescue)

Before you go: More self-booking problems: This is the worst booking mistake I’ve ever seen.