Wow...worst...hotel...ever! Being a road-warrior business type traveller I have stayed at probably 500 different hotels in the past 5 years throughout the western US ranging from run-down roadside motels to the St. Regis, and the Econolodge Phoenix Airport wins the award for the worst hotel experience. I wasnt supposed to be staying at the econolodge, as I had reserved it for my dad who was catching an early morning flight from phoenix and he just needed a place to sleep that had a shuttle service to the airport. Plans change (as they always seem to do when I have a non-refundable reservation), and i needed to stay in Phoenix so we decided to make the best of it and check into the Econolodge and see if they could give us a double room or a roll-away. First thing we noticed as we drove towards the hotel was the seedy and run-down area it is located in, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but for anyone reading this review and plans on walking anywhere and is considering bidding 2* PHX airport, take that into consideration. When we got to the hotel we found that it was almost completely deserted. The hotel is a U shape with the parking lot in the middle and there were exactly two cars in the parking lot. Since this was the case, we figured it would be no problem for them to accomodate us in a double room. Wrong! First thing out of the desk clerk's mouth after giving our name to check-in was "Since you made this reservation with the internet, there will be NO room changes. The internet made your reservation for a smoking king room." We politely asked if he could accomodate us in a non-smoking room with two beds. "No." Okay, how about a non-smoking king room and a roll-away bed. "No, you get a smoking room and a roll-away bed will be $30 additional for the night." At this point things started to get a little more impolite, since we pointed out that he appeared to only have maybe three rooms filled for that night and he was being completely unaccomodating. "Since you made this reservation with one of those cheap internet sites I don't have to do anything for you since you have already paid and I don't care if you stay here or not." was the clerk's reply. Wow. We went to the room (supposedly renovated, but with 5 large burn holes in the carpet, a TV that didn't work and a decor from the 1970's) whipped out the laptop and made a reservation on Hotwire for two rooms at the 3* Radisson Phoenix Airport for that night for $73 a room and high tailed it out of there. I can somewhat understand the anti-hotwire and priceline attitude if you somehow got a room at a 5* or a resort for like $25 a night and they were full and had to put you in the presidential suite or something, but this was a run-down econolodge that was maybe 5% full. And we paid more through hotwire than we would of directly through the Econolodge website with a AAA discount. So be careful when buying 2* Phoenix Airport through Hotwire, you may get this place. Yuck.
