No room for me at The Alexandrian Marriott Hotel in DC

After an evening flight I landed at DC Reagan Airport around 10pm this past Monday. I was able to pick up a very nice upgraded rental Volvo XC90 from AVIS (thank you AVIS President’s Club), and I was on my way to Alexandria.

I had booked The Alexandrian, a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel. I was anxious to stay in this hotel as I have been to Alexandria several times and this was never at the approved rate from my work. I turned my phone on, and I noticed I had a few missed calls from this hotel. They called 2x more in which I answered but no one was on the other line. Either someone from the hotel was butt dialing me, or else there was going to be a problem with my room.
I got to the hotel at about 10:40. I had a meeting at 8am the next morning, so I was able to park on the street for free.

I walked in and there is not much going on this late at night. Its a very nice historic hotel from what I first notice.

I walk up to the front desk and the employee takes my ID and credit card just as one usually does. Then 2 minutes later it says hmmm, and he goes back behind the wall . He comes back out 5 minutes later and informs me they don’t have my room type. They only have a handicapped room available. I tell him that’s fine, I am not that picky. Then he tells me that is the last room so they want to keep it open. Its 10:45 at night, so I couldn’t imagine they get too many bookings that late. They ask me if I would be OK moving to The Morrison House which is an Autograph Collection Hotel 3 blocks away. He offers me 5k points. I tell him for 25k points I would. The front desk responds that he will just give me the room then. I tell him for 10k points and he doesn’t take it. He offers 5k points and threw in some breakfast vouchers. He told me The Morrison House is actually a nicer hotel. So I take it just to have this interesting experience

Since The Alexandrian had a room, I could have just stayed there. So I didn’t really have any leverage. 5k points and a breakfast voucher isn’t that much. This was the first time this has ever happened before to me though. From my five minutes there, I would never consider booking this hotel again.  Not quite as good as my $9k Delta voucher, but you cant win them all…