Pittsburgh Plaza Hotel

I was in town to attend the funeral of a family member. The Pittsburgh Plaza hotel is dirty, in disrepair, vacant, has no security, no valet parking, and the grounds are dark. The Pool and exercise room are closed as well as other parts of hotel. The front desk is only staffed by one person who disappears for extended periods of time so you have to wait for help. In addition, the staff is rude and dressed unprofessionally in crocs, jeans, and sweatshirts (some of which are stained). The manager of the hotel retracted an offer for a discount for bad experience I had at their hotel.

I booked a reservation at the Pittsburgh Plaza hotel on 11/15/22 for June 17, 2023. I received an email at 6:47am this morning from ********* informing me that this reservation has been cancelled. I received another email at 6:48am this morning from ********* stating that since they hadn't heard back from me on rebooking elsewhere (giving me exactly one minute to respond), they were cancelling my booking. I booked this reservation 2 1/2 months ago at the time that I was able to get tickets for the Taylor Swift concert as a birthday present for my daughter. Trying to find another hotel at this time is virtually impossible. I am very dissappointed with the Pittsburgh Plaza Hotel and **********. This shows a complete lack of integrity on the part of the hotel that they would choose to cancel a set reservation made months in advance in order to resell my reservation at an inflated rate.

This hotel has canceled my upcoming reservation that I have had for months because it happens to coincide with a Taylor Swift concert (that was announced after i made my reservation) I had a great rate at this property and they canceled because they want to change more than 700% instead. This property cannot be trusted. Don't book here.

I’ve had a booking at this hotel for months for June 17th 2023. I got an email today that they could no longer honor my booking. Wonder why? Oh I see! Taylor Swift is in town that night and all the hotels downtown are $800+ per night (as opposed to the $180 I originally booked for). So instead of honoring a booking I’ve had for months, they canceled so they could price gouge some other poor people. Shady shady shady. Everyone should know how awful you guys are.

We booked 4 rooms to go to a Steelers game. No towels in the room. When I tried to call the front desk, the phone was disconnected. Called down on my cell phone and was told to come down and get them myself. Extremely rude and unprofessional staff at the front desk. No breakfast as advertised because-No restaurant- closed. No bar- closed. No working bathrooms in the lobby. Had a pot of coffee by the front desk for guest to have in the morning- no cups for 2 days. One of our friends was checked into a room that was already occupied. One of our other friends room had a cockroach in it. When taking a shower in the morning, the shower was cool at best. When we brought it to the attention of the front desk staff we were told that you can’t shower when everyone else is showering in the hotel. We are taking bets as to when this dump will shut down. If one of the respectable hotel chains bought it and put some money into it it could be a great property. Until that happens, do NOT stay there!

I had to abort my stay here - for good reason. I arrived to check in after earlier leaving my suitcase there to do some visiting before check-in time. In hindsight, I'm lucky to have even gotten my suitcase back, given how sketchy this place is. Things went left at check-in when I happened to look up after giving the front desk attendant my driver's license and card for incidentals and saw that she was making a copy of my license. This struck me as odd and disturbing - I've never checked into a hotel where they make a copy of your ID. In this era of identity theft, that is quite worrisome. So I told her as much and asked why she needed a copy of the ID. Her only explanation was that it is hotel policy. I informed her that I wasn't comfortable with that, and then asked what they do with the copies after the stay is complete. Her response was that they keep it on file? Excuse me? I'm not comfortable with complete strangers in the hospitality industry having Personally Identifiable Information of mine on file. That level of risk is unacceptable. She asked if I would like to speak with a manager and I took her up on that offer. The manager rudely informed me that I can either leave and they destroy the copy of my identification but under no circumstance could I check-in without them keeping that copy. When I told her that all she needs with my ID is to confirm that the person checking in is the person represented on the ID. Her response was "so WHEN the police come because you've done something or something happens to you, what then?" I responded by kindly telling her that if I'm checked in, you already know my name and where I'm at, but also, does this sort of sordid occurrence happen often? And so I called Hotwire, and when I told them about this egregious tale, they refunded me my money. I returned to the front desk to request that ill-gotten copy of my identification and would you believe the woman at the front desk was reluctant to give it to me?? Rather than simply hand it over to me, she took it to a shredder behind her. The shredder wasn't working, and so I more firmly asked that she kindly hand over the copy of MY ID! With quite a nasty attitude, she finally handed me the copy of my license. I rebooked to another hotel and when I told the front desk attendant of my ordeal, she winced and said "that place is known to be a hotbed for sketchy activity. I wouldn't advise anyone to stay there." Well, I know that now, and I feel like I need to do the public service of ensuring that others visiting the area aren't lured into this awful place.

Upon arrival we should have known better as the front desk staff had no idea which rooms were clean and available verse those that weren’t. One of the two people working the front desk had to track down housekeeping to ask. Unfortunately that method of checking did not work as we were give keys to TWO different rooms that were occupied by other guests. We had two rooms for the night, one room had zero towels and the other had 1 towel, one room had a fridge and microwave and the other didn’t, no hairdryer, no Wi-Fi, wallpaper peeling off walls in bathroom, multiples rooms out of service, elevator that didn’t really work (had to push up button to go down)…saw multiple guests complaining about similar issues. The place really should have shut down and completed their renovations and reopened. It’s a mess. Needless to say we won’t be back.