My extended family and I researched for months for a rental in New York City that was centrally located, in a safe location, that slept the correct number of people and that would have the necessary kitchen equipment and dining table to accommodate 10 people preparing and eating Thanksgiving dinner (including the turkey). We booked our apartment with 212 Suites via their website. They advertise all over the web (tripadvisor.com, homeaway.com, flipkey.com, etc.) I read all the reviews on those sites at the time of booking...
Their website is very professional and even has a "live operator"... That has never ever been available. They were very responsive via email until the first deposit was made and then it took 3 emails and many many phone calls and then a threat to cancel the reservation before they would respond to a few simple questions regarding the apartment. I asked via email if the apartment definately had kitchen supplies and seating for ten because we were planning on making Thanksgiving dinner. The response was very matter of fact and rude, stating that they didn't know what was in the kitchen. After doing some further research on this company, we found this website and some others that were very alarming (and now I see why). We considered cancelling but at that point it was too close to our travel dates and had already paid a large deposit.
Upon arrival, we called the phone number as directed and 212 Suites did not have our apartment ready. First they said that they didn't have us checking in until the next day and then it switched to the fact that they had double booked the apartment (even with all my emails containing our names and date!!!). They contacted a sister company who put us up in a nice apartment in the vicinity of the originally booked apartment for $500 paid to them directly.
Daniel (the man at 212) showed us a few available options for the remaining nights and took one night off the final bill (which we thought was the least he could do). Our entire party had to unpack and move cars and repack and move cars (in the busy city) all during the Macy's Parade on Thanksgiving Day. This was our main attraction and we were extremely upset about this... But it gets worse.
So, we (with 4 young children) relocated to the next apartment which was no longer centrally located and in a very UN desirable area. There was a homeless shelter in the same building/next door to us. We knew after our dealings with Daniel the day before, that he was not going to do anything to better this situation, so we moved all of our stuff in, just to discover: it was 3 studios combined to make one very oddly laid out apartment (you had to walk through one bedroom to get to another). The oven did not work, half the outlets did not work, the electrical wiring to the lighting was exposed and off the ceiling, their was a lot of hair in the shower, blood stains on the comforters, a large burn hole in the mattress, one small two top table (so much for our dinner), one trash can in the entire place, the wireless internet did not work, the windows did not lock and were the only ones on the block without bars (we had to put broomsticks in the windows on the fire escape and hope that while we were out enjoying our NYC vacation that the homeless weren't breaking in and stealing our belongings), socks were filthy from walking around on the carpets, the door had broken locks on it and did not latch all the way, on and on and on.
We survived, nothing got stolen but my husband does have about 50 big nasty itchy red welts/bumps all over his body that showed up on Friday during our stay. After researching, we are almost positive that they are bed bug bites. We brought our own sheets and blankets, but I guess that doesn't matter? We are currently sanitizing everything we had in the apartment, which was a lot of stuff... Ugghh.
I am disgusted at this company. Yes we paid less then we would've at a hotel. But we would have NEVER ever ever ever have booked that particular apartment. We felt very unsafe walking home at night with our kids and felt very dirty and grossed out while in the apartment.
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