I traveled to Ambato on a leisure trip with my partner and initially stayed at a different hotel on the same plaza that Hotel Boutique Mary Carmen is located on. A colleague of ours recommended that I try Mary Carmen, so I decided to change from the initial hotel to Mary Carmen and spent 3 nights at the hotel. Upon arriving at the hotel, I asked the receptionist to show me the Executive Suites that were available, since I'd preferred to avoid gaudy or loud decoration. Each floor is thematic, and each room has an interior design to match its floor. Some of the rooms are more neutrally decorated, while others are heavily themed. As far as its layout and thematic approach are concerned, this hotel is similar to the Japanese ”love hotels” (for the reader who is not familiar, ”love hotels” are discrete motels, usually with thematic rooms, frequented typically by sex workers and/or budget travelers). After picking out a room that was, in my opinion, more tastefully decorated, I went downstairs to finalize the reservation. At this point, the receptionist charged me for the full stay, which seemed odd; typically, a guest pays the stay (including food and other charges) at checkout. After checking in, I left the hotel to visit local attractions and came back some hours later. The receptionist then informed me that they had water/plumbing issues in the room I'd selected, and asked me to move to a different room. The new room was exactly what I was hoping to avoid in terms of decoration and overall motel feel. Given this change, I decided I would leave the hotel a day sooner than originally planned. I told the receptionist that I might be checking out a day earlier than anticipated, and asked her how the reimbursement would work (because they'd already charged me for the full stay). She said there should be no problem and that she would review with management the next day -- evidently there was no sense of urgency on her part. The next day, I followed up with the receptionist who then had her senior colleague tell me that there was no way they could reimburse me. She explained that if I wanted to do that, it would have to have been reported and reimbursed the previous day (i.e., the day that I actually asked the receptionist). They apologized for their mistake, blamed the mistake on the fact that the receptionist was new, and offered only two ”remediations”: take hotel credit for a future stay, or spend the credit that I have at their restaurant or boutique. However, they refused to reimburse me for a mistake they admittedly made. Note to the consumer: When a hotel makes a mistake, they admit to that mistake, and they choose not to rectify it, it is a big red flag. Note that reimbursing expenditures made with a credit card is a normal operation and is not technically precluded by anything. Mary Carmen's failure to reimburse me was not because they could not ... it was because they chose not to. This is what I would expect from a motel or low-bud
