Complaint Review: EconoLodge Topeka Blvd Topeka Ks.

I was in Topeka to participate in a Sports Car Club of America competition at Heartland Motorsportds Park.

Utterly bizarre reception by a desk clerk at the EconoLodge Topeka Blvd. in Topeka last Thursday, May 2:
Me: I have a reservation, 3 days starting today.
Clerk: I can’t find it in my computer, only a 2-day arriving tomorrow.
Me: I’m here now, and I have a printed copy of my confirmation in my hand.
Clerk: That’s not possible. You must have called the hotel direct.
Me: I did not. I made the reservation on the ChoiceHotels.com website.
Clerk: It’s not possible. (She is now holding my confirmation in her hand and calling me a liar).
Me: I still need a room for tonight (it’s Thursday, plenty of vacancies)
Clerk: I can do that. The price is (naming a price that would total more than $65 over that quoted on the reservation).
Me: My guaranteed reservation quotes a price of $X.
Clerk: That’s not possible, the price will be $XX.
Me: What’s your name?
Clerk: My manager knows who’s on staff.
Me (now speaking in a stern voice, assertive but not abusive or profane): I am a Choice Rewards member. I have been staying at this hotel several times a year for many years. (I checked later, been staying there since 2014; been a Choice Rewards member since 2008.)
Clerk: I am cancelling your reservation. You will have to go elsewhere. If you don’t leave I will call police.

Apparently being upset at such incompetence and arrogance is a criminal act. I tried contacting a Choice Hotels representative using a number on my Choice Rewards card. The clerk refused to work with the Choice Hotels representative, describing the encounter as an “altercation,” and again refusing to identify herself.

The representative eventually found me lodgings, coincidentally at another EconoLodge (on Wanamaker), which handled the last-minute arrangements cheerfully and competently. And at a price very close to the original quote. She also said she had opened a complaint report on the hotel.

Five stars to the Choice Hotels representative and to the EconoLodge Wanamaker, zero stars to the EconoLodge Topeka Blvd. where a number of SCCA members have stayed in the past.

Postscript: I have since cancelled my other two reservations at this hotel and have booked rooms at the "other" EconoLodge (Wanamaker).