Review of Holiday Inn Express Alpharetta 2*

BUSINESS TRAVELERS BEWARE! I am a business traveler that travels frequently throughout the year and as of late, I am spending lots of time in the Atlanta Metro area. I book all of my travel on a corporate travel tool with my company and was only aware of typical cancellation policies whereas I either have to cancel prior to 6PM on the day of travel or in some more stringent scenarios I am warned that I must cancel at least 24 hours in advance. In the business world, I rarely (pretty much almost never with the exception of this situation) ever give a deposit for a hotel stay. That is what makes this situation somewhat frustrating. My trip was booked one week in advance of the actual trip. After booking the trip, I was told that my team in control of the local transportation was staying an extra night outside of the Atlanta area. So I immediately went back onto the corporate travel booking tool; cancelled the Holiday Inn Express hotel; and booked another hotel outside of the area. This all happened on the same day that I made the original reservation and was done not knowing that I had signed up and was already charged for the room. I didn't pickup on this until I reconciled my travel card and found the charge. Going back through my email archive and after speaking with AJ and the Hotel Manager (Jay? ), I found the original email telling me about the deposit, but this didn’t arrive until the 19th—a full day past the original booking and a day after my reservation had already been cancelled and received by you. I have escalated this to the Mr. Mehta (The Hotel Franchise's Regional Manager) several times via email under direction from Jay and have yet to even get an acknowledgement — so much for customer service! To date, the Holiday Inn Express at Mansell Road has refused to credit me for this unused hotel. I was able to get some assistance from IHG (owner of the brand) and they refunded 1 day of the two day stay fee. That is why there is even a one star on this review. Otherwise, the lack of respect for the business traveler in this situation has deemed them as a place I will never stay at again. As a note: when we travel on a personal basis, we do expect special deals and "non-refundable" policies tied to such specials, but when you are booking on a Corporate Toolsand scrolling through hotels, it is rarely the case that anyone expects a deposit or an inflexible, unrealistic non-refundable policy for reservations made a week or so out. The lack of consideration or responsiveness by Mr. Mehta and his team have made it clear that they aren't interested in doing the right thing by us business travelers out here. If I had cancelled, a day or two before the "very busy" week, I could understand owning a portion of the stay, but I cancelled within hours a week out. This is just plain BAD Business! Beware when you see this hotel popping up on your search and be prepared for being locked in with no recourse.