I will start off this review by saying I won't be staying with Aloft again. I gave one additional star for the overall stay in the hotel itself because that was fine. However I was grossly overcharged and lied to, which is the reason for the low rating.
My reservation was prepaid prior to me checking in. I was in Beachwood for medical reasons and I was not responsible for the cost of hotel stay. Upon check-in, I let the front desk person know that my room was pre-paid and that my personal card should only be on file for incidentals. This is standard. She asked me to slide my card, and when I questioned why, she said I was being charged for the total room amount because it was not prepaid. The card that prepaid the room had already been charged so yes, it was prepaid. I didn't argue because it was 2am so I told her charge me for one night and we will straighten it out in the morning.
The next morning, I spoke to the manager who said all was resolved. It wasn't until later that I noticed my personal card had been charged two times totaling $760. This hotel is around $130 a night and even if they had mistakenly charged me for all 3 nights, this was still way too much. I personally spoke to the manager who assured me this was for incidentals and it would be removed 3-5 business days after checkout. I was rushed so I didn't do the math until later (60% per night). It was still way, way over. Instead of getting misinformation from the manager again, I decided to contact corporate who finally determined that I was, in fact, over charged by quite a lot. A huge issue of mine was I was not given the chance to argue the amount when I checked in. She said nothing of the additional $570 charge to my card- just sent me on my way.
The corporate office told me I would be contacted the following morning by the hotel. They were to call my bank to reverse the overcharge and to give me some sort of comp/deal to make up for the inconvenience. Surprise- the hotel never called me, never apologized, never gave me "free stuff" like they said (not that I asked for anything), and never reversed the charge. I checked out this morning and all of the $760 is still pending. It will most likely fall off my account after the 3-5 business days they mentioned before, but I was told it would be taken off immediately after they contacted my bank. So essentially, Aloft is holding onto $760 of my "real money" (this is a debit card) when they are actually entitled to zero of it.