A woman recently proclaimed on TikTok that she’ll never “stay at a hotel again” after noticing that Westin, an upscale hotel chain owned by Marriott International, lied to her about having freezers in their rooms. The mixup, she said, prevented her from storing her breast milk.
Kate Seely (@mom_inaminivan), who lives in Texas, said that she booked a Westin hotel in New York for her and her husband’s anniversary in February. At the time, she said she was still breastfeeding for her son and wanted to make sure the hotel had a freezer to store her milk.
But she said she was repeatedly lied to about the availability of a freezer and ultimately didn’t get a refund. As of Saturday afternoon, Seely’s video on her predicament had amassed more than 51,700 views.
What did the Marriott-chain hotel lie about?
Seely said that, before booking her hotel, she called to ask whether there was a freezer in the room. She said she was told there would be one. In addition, she said a hotel associate claimed they made a note that the couple needed a freezer.
When she arrived in her room, however, it only contained a small refrigerator.
Seely said that, upon realizing this, she called the front desk and asked to be moved to a room with a freezer. That’s when she realized she was lied to.
When Seely called downstairs, she said she was told that none of the rooms contained freezers. As a result, she and her husband were forced to buy their own freezer from Amazon, which was supposed to arrive the following day.
Unfortunately, Seely said the Amazon freezer never arrived either—even though the company confirmed the shipment was delivered.
“It says it was delivered but nobody can find it anywhere,” Seely said.
Amazon workaround leads to more Westin issues
In addition, Seely said that Westin didn’t offer much help finding the package. Their last-minute solution, she said, was to offer to put Seely’s breastmilk in the hotel’s commercial freezer. She said a manager told her that the couple could collect the milk before their flight the following day.
But Seely’s problems continued: When she went to collect her milk the next morning, at 4am, nobody could find her milk nor her freezer bags.
“We’re going to be late to our flight,” Seely said. “They can’t find our freezer bags anywhere. They can’t find our milk anywhere.”
Seely said it took 30 minutes for someone to eventually locate her stuff. But when they did, it was lukewarm and ultimately unusable. Seely said she lost 200 ounces of breastmilk. And when she asked both the hotel and corporate for compensation, she said both “ghosted” her.
Six months later, in August, Seely said she still hasn’t received anything from Westin or Marriott.
“They never reached out to me. They never contacted me,” she said. “Nothing. They didn’t even respond to the message I sent them… That’s why I’ll never stay at a hotel again.”
@mom_inaminivan Why I’ll never stay at a Westin/Marriot Hotel again! #westin #marriot @Westin Hotels and Resorts @Marriott Bonvoy ♬ original sound – C-Lee Kate
Do Westin hotels usually have freezers?
Whether a hotel room contains a freezer appears to vary by location and chain, according to online reports. One Reddit thread from five years ago said that Westin hotels often contain, at the very least, large refrigerators. Still, some commenters complained that the refrigerators aren’t strong enough to keep food and drinks cool.
“Be advised that they’re more like sealed coolers with budget coils than a reliable mini fridge,” one redditor wrote. “It can take up to 12 hours to cool a room temp can of soda in an empty fridge, for example.”
Since freezers are not a given at hotels, some nursing mothers on another discussion forum recommended calling in advance to see what’s available. One mother said that, like Seely, she’ll try to call the hotel concierge in advance to confirm that there’s a freezer.
If there’s not one in the room, she said, she’ll arrange something with the hotel and use the freezers in the kitchen or staff areas. “I would bring a giant ziploc bag with my name and cell phone number clearly labeled on it, and I’d store all my milk in storage bags then place inside the ziploc and freeze flat,” she wrote. “I would also usually have a ziploc with 3-4 reusable freezer packs, that I’d then put into an insulated cooler with my milk for travel.”
Viewers stunned by Marriott’s alleged action
It’s unclear, however, why a Marriott representative would repeatedly lie to Seely. And given the troubles the new mother went through, some commenters said that she should demand a full refund.
“I would be so livid,” one woman wrote.
“They owe you a full refund,” another said.
“A demand letter should be sent,” a third commenter added.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Seely via TikTok comment and to Marriott by email.
Internet culture is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here. You’ll get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.
