Motel 9 University-Downtown

This place looked decent online. The price was good. That should have been my clue. Austin is expensive. I booked on their website. The night I showed up, I didn't even have to check in. I could see clearly what I was in for. It was an absolute dump in a bad part of town. I told the man at the check-in desk that I wished to cancel because it was not a nice place. He said he would cancel but that I would still be responsible for the first night. I appealed to him and said, "this isn't a nice place. It doesn't look like the photos". He said it didn't matter. Obviously it should matter, but my card was charged. I think this place make money by doing this. The reviews on other sites, which I did not see, demonstrate absolute filth. I called Choice Hotels. They said that this guy put me down as a "no show" which was not true. The Choice rep said they would tell the hotel to issue a refund. That has yet to happen. It's frustrating that I have to spend time chasing this money when a location of a major hotel chain is dishonest and practices false advertising. I can't recommend avoiding this place enough.

Please do yourself a favor and don't stay here. Some friends and I stayed here because we had a conference at UT Austin, it figured on the list of hotels (since it was SXSW weekend, the rates were outrageous), and the location seemed good. We nicknamed it "The Bates Motel." Enough said. It needs to be demolished or renovated. The administration doesn't care about customers and minimizes expenses in maintenance. It actually looks way better in pics than in real life, so please don't be deluded. Put it this way, as soon as I got home, I cleaned and washed everything that was in the room.