Homewood Suites New General Manager, Stephanie Lopez has brought some baggage with her and it's not the kind you'd expect....
My partner and I are a same-sex, interracial couple in our late twenties. We have both stayed at this Hotel and many other Hilton Brand Hotels in the area over the last year, never have we had an experience such as this one. We wanted to bring some more public attention to this issue as we have yet to make any progress in having our issue resolved. Here is the initial complaint I made to Hilton about our experience;
My partner and I are both Hilton Honors members and frequently stay at the Homewood Suites in San Bernardino CA. We have a concern about the newly hired General Manager, Stephanie Lopez’s actions regarding our most recent reservation. My partner and I had our first encounter with Stephanie last week, April 7th to be exact. We wanted to extend our stay which was originally April 4th to April 7th, one more night.. When we called the front desk to let them know we would be extending our stay and that we had booked another night online choosing the same room number on the Hilton Honors app, they demanded that we come down to the front desk in order to see our ID and card to check us in. We found this very odd, as for one we have done this exact thing with no issues twice at this property in the 30 days prior, and two and the oddest to us was the fact that even when it is a brand new reservation made through the Hilton Honors app, we never have to go to the front desk taking advantage of Hilton’s Digital Check-In which allows for us to check-in digitally and go straight to our room. When we arrived at the front desk, Ms.Lopez wasn’t there and I presented my card which was the same card used in multiple prior stays and was told that they don’t accept those cards. After explaining to Ms. Lopez that I have used this card on multiple occasions booking through the app, and asked why it is an issue now she said, This is Hotel Policy when any guest books a room. I argued that that’s untrue as we have never had to come by the front desk to not only extend a stay but, for any reason as we always take advantage of digital check-in. During the hour-long interaction, she was very rude and condescending with us and made lewd and unsavory comments about our sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status, and stood over us with her arms crossed while her African American front desk agent followed her commands. We reported these events to Hilton and asked for an apology from Ms.Lopez for her remarks regarding our sexual orientation and for embarrassing us in the hotel lobby, this has still yet to happen.
Going forward we booked a four-night stay which was supposed to begin April 15th and end on Monday the 19th, we called the morning of our stay at 9:02am and modified our stay from four nights to two checking out the 17th rather than the 19th, we had no issues doing this and we were even invited to check-in through the app shortly after the call which we did. I received a call from Ms. Lopez at approximately 1:15 pm today informing me she has decided to cancel our reservation, and I asked her why? She simply said Because she believes that "another hotel would be a better fit for people like us” (referring to my partner and me). In the heat of the moment and feeling caught off guard and targeted by Ms. Lopez yet again, I used some unsavory language after being given the unbelievable and vague reasoning behind her deciding to cancel. Since my partner is less emotional than myself, I had him call and speak to her to get to the bottom of this, when he called Ms. Lopez and asked for the reason for the reservation she told him the reservation was canceled by her because “She didn’t feel like she wanted to accommodate us.” Then promptly hung up on him. After this, all attempts to further speak to Ms. Lopez to try and work this out failed and we were told once we had arrived at the property that, Ms. Lopez was not on the property even though we had spoken to her 20 minutes prior after she called my cell phone from the hotel, and even more shocking that the cops would be called if we stayed on the property any longer. This is an egregious misuse of authority and in my opinion a total and complete misrepresentation of Hilton’s Values and Dedication to a guest.
"Another hotel would be a better fit for people like you”
Given that Ms. Lopez had no reason as to why she canceled the reservation and if in fact, Ms. Lopez had any reservations or concerns about us staying at her hotel any longer, our last stay there would have been the most appropriate time to inform us of that, not an hour before a stay that had been booked 3 days prior. This situation after continued attempts to reach Ms. Lopez including one attempt in which the front desk staff clearly didn't realize they had left the phone unmuted, and one of them was overheard, saying "It's them" only to then be told shortly after a minute of continued unintelligible chatter. that Ms. Lopez couldn't be reached and for the third time we were transferred to the voicemail.
This issue is deeply concerning to not only myself and my partner, but concerning in general for any guests who felt safe two months ago staying here prior to Ms. Lopez's inhospitable and sinister presence.
