CM
Charlie McCreary
Dec 26, 2025
This all occurred on the morning of July 25th, based on a booking (through Capital One Travel) for the night of July 24th. It was such a bad experience that it continues to weigh on my mind.
I want to begin by explaining that I have been traveling frequently my whole life, but I have never before written a bad review or complained about any accommodation. Unfortunately, this recent ordeal in Calgary was by far one of the worst travel experiences of my life. I have heard of airlines overbooking flights, but I had never before heard of hotels doing the same. I find this policy to be especially unacceptable in circumstances where the room in question has been booked and paid for in advance. However, this is what happened to me.
The first part of this horrible night was entirely out of the control of the hotel. My flights coming in to Calgary had been delayed well into the night. As a result, I did not arrive to the city until after 4am, which was very much later than my scheduled arrival time of 9:48 p.m., so this was a very long and difficult travel day. The entire night I managed to keep myself going by reassuring myself that at least I had a nice bed waiting for me at the pre-paid room. Even though we would only have time for a very short sleep, I was looking forward to this bed and shower more than one can possibly imagine.
When my partner and I arrived at the hotel, we were very abruptly informed that our room had been given away due to the hotel’s policy of overbooking. We were told that there was no room available for us, despite having paid for this room in advance. We were then quickly asked to step aside to allow the hotel reception desk to assist other customers, some of whom were checked into rooms right in front of us while we waited. We were treated as if we were not even welcome to wait there in the lobby until we figured out another plan for where to sleep.
We were not given any assurances that another accommodation could be secured for us. Instead we were told that (without actually checking anywhere) no rooms at any hotels in the city would be available, so there was nothing that could be done for us. The person working at the reception desk treated us as if we were an inconvenience and asked us if the hotel shuttle could just return us to the airport.
When I explained how tired we were from a night of traveling with no sleep, it was implied that we should probably just return to the airport, presumably to sleep on the ground somewhere at the airport. I responded that this was unacceptable, and I explained that I would prefer to remain in the lobby until we were able to find an alternative accommodation.
As it turned out, we learned that the previous information provided to us was false; as there actually was another hotel right there in the airport area with an available room. This was even another Hilton property, the Hilton Garden Inn at the Calgary Airport.
Despite the fact we had initially been misinformed about the availability of other rooms in the area and despite the fact that the room that was ultimately located was another Hilton property, we were still told that we needed to make this booking ourselves, as the hotel would not do it for us. We were also told we would need to find our own transportation there, so we called, booked the room, got an Uber, and made our way to this other property, which turned out to be significantly more expensive.
This was a nightmare. I have never been treated like this by any hotel. What made it worse is that it was this hotel's mistake that caused this whole ordeal. In spite of that, we were asked to please leave and go back to the airport, even when it was clear we had nowhere else to go and needed to find somewhere to sleep.
As I said before, I am not normally one to complain, but this was a truly horrible travel experience. I would not recommend that anyone ever stay at this hotel.