People share a lot of travel experiences with me. Sometimes I think the airline or hotel are in the wrong, sometimes I think the traveler could’ve handled things a bit differently, and then you have this… one of the stranger stories that I’ve had shared with me in quite some time.
A bizarre La Quinta late check-out incident that escalated
A Wyndham Rewards Diamond member shared a communication with me that they’ve sent to Wyndham corporate over a stay on November 6, 2025, at the La Quinta Inn & Suites by Wyndham Miami Lakes property. Let me just copy and paste the entire complaint, because it’s quite something (I’ll leave it unedited, except adding some spacing, to make it easier to read):
I was checked in at 5pm by a wonderful woman to whom I requested a late checkout and she advised that you the manager had allowed a checkout for me at 1:00, even though I was looking for 2PM as a Diamond guest I accepted the 1PM offered, I simply added that I was tired and that i did not expect any banging etc, as she responded of course not.
I ignored the hair on the towels and the general dinginess of the room and went to bed only to have repeated banging on my door at 10:30 going until 11:30 when people started coming into my room when I advised of late checkout they responded “no ingles”. It was getting worse I tried calling the front desk many times with no answer.
It was getting worse, in fact the banging and knocking was so intense and I had to go to the bathroom. I bolted the door shut and people were trying to get in the room and this was approximately 11:45 by 12 o’clock. I left the bathroom and unbolted the door and a woman walked in and started screaming at me to leave the room. I explained to her that I had late check out she said she didn’t care. She was gonna call the police if I didn’t leave immediately, even though I had more than an hour until my check out time, I went to the front desk and was surprised to see this girl there I asked to speak to a manager and she refused.
I asked her to confirm my late check out with the person who checked me in and she refused. I requested the name of the manager she refused. I requested the phone number of the manager and she refused. I attempted to call Corporate and while on the phone with corporate, the police arrived, and the policeman apologetically explained to me that even though it was obvious what had happened, I had to leave the hotel, even though it was before my checkout time and not only that, but he advised that I was not to return to the hotel for 30 days.
All I did was call a little bit later in the day to try to get the names and was very rudely told that I’ve been banned from the hotel. I did nothing wrong. I am a diamond member. I am entitled to instant Late checkouts and was advised that I had a late check out to have this terrible kind of treatment occur, where I have to literally have five policeman escort me out of a hotel when I did absolutely nothing wrong was absurd being a diamond member having a late check out having people repeatedly come bang and disturbed me, waking me up violently out of a deep sleep to which I have not yet even recovered is beyond horrible not acceptable not something be fitting Wyndham, La Quinta or any standard whatsoever and I request that you immediately resolve this and having such people at your front desk, compromises the standards that I have come to expect from Wyndham over the years I have stayed more than 1,000 times at hotels over the last several years and I have never ever seen such a lack of professionalism, such a lack of courtesy, such a lack of the most minimal of standards.
I expect immediate satisfaction to this impassioned call for assistance at this grave injustice performed by your employees. It should be obvious that one call could have prevented this entire incident, a call your employee refused to make, this was unacceptable.
She MUST be fired this was the worst experience ever.
Talk about an unnecessary and avoidable escalation!
I can totally understand this traveler’s frustration, of requesting late check-out with the desire to sleep in, only to then have someone knocking on the door earlier than the requested check-out time. It’s super annoying, and it happens at all kinds of properties, and often comes down to a lack of communication between the front desk and housekeeping.
When I first read through the complaint, my initial thought was that maybe the guy should’ve handled this differently. If over the course of 90 minutes they’re constantly banging on your door and they don’t understand what you’re requesting, it’s not surprising that they’d start to assume something isn’t right, and would basically view the guest as non-cooperative, and might almost have safety concerns.
But when I read the complaint a couple more times, my opinion changed a bit. I’m not actually sure what the guest could’ve done differently? It sounds like he repeatedly tried to call the front desk, and they didn’t answer? That lack of responsiveness is the hotel’s fault, no?
The way I see it, there are only two other strategies this guy could’ve used:
- He could’ve put on clothes and gone to the front desk to discuss it with them in person
- He could’ve used a translation service on his phone, since it sounds like there was a language barrier with the staff knocking, and they were basically talking past one another
I can understand how a hotel would have a serious issue with a guest if the door was bolted and the guest was non-responsive, and they were worried something bad had happened. But here you have a guest with top tier elite status who seems to be responding, who was granted late check-out, and this ends with the cops being called and a ban from the hotel?
This does strike me as being a totally wild escalation, and assuming the details are as presented, the guest deserves an apology. Obviously if there had been proper internal communication about late check-out being granted, none of this would’ve happened, so to have this end with the guest being taken off property by the cops and banned is so crazy.
Bottom line
A Wyndham Rewards Diamond member had the cops called on him and was banned from a La Quinta property in Miami Lakes. The crime? Trying to stay in his room until the check-out time he was granted. This all seems like such an unnecessary escalation of a situation, and I’m curious what hotel staff were thinking when they did this…
What do you make of this strange La Quinta incident?
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