Red Roof Inn review: Reservation cancelled without notice even after paying in full

Booked through booking.com Wed Oct 11 to Sun Oct 15. I was delayed and could not arrive until Thurs Oct 12, so through the booking.com site used the "Contact the property" and emailed the hotel to advise them that I was going to arrive the Thurs instead, was happy to pay for the room for the Wed and did still want the room Thurs to Sun.

I arrive on Thurs to find they have cancelled the reservation. Best part - the front desk is on the phone calling all the folks that have reservations that have not yet shown up to see if they still want their room. I NEVER got a call. I never got an email to advise they had cancelled it. Nothing. And they never notified Booking.com at all.

The front desk was able to get another guest to give up one of their rooms so we could use it the Thurs night. So we had to check out Fri am, check back in Fri night (giant pain). The room also wasn't what we booked, and had a crappy awful plastic covered pull out so neither of us slept as the pull out was awful and noisy so it kept both of us awake.

Fri was uneventful. Sat night was cold, so we turned the heater on. HUGE mistake. The heater is clearly malfunctioning, and filled the room with acrid smoke that set off the alarm within about 10 seconds of us turning the heat on so we had to turn the AC on on full all night, sleep with the bathroom fan/light on all night, and I was up until almost 11 with the door of the room open trying to air it out. As the hotel was full, there were no other options so we were stuck there. I notified the hotel about the issue, they didn't seem overly concerned.

I contacted booking.com about the issue and was advised that the room should not have been cancelled in the first place as it was paid in full, and at no time were they notified by the hotel it had been. When Booking.com called the hotel directly, the hotel LIED and told them I had called and asked for the room to be cancelled (interesting as I was given a different story when I arrived on the Thursday). I would recommend NEVER staying at a Red Roof Inn. It was a terrible experience.

Note that after hanging up with Booking.com and getting a feeling the hotel was unwilliing to do anything, I called Corporate Customer service. After about 15 minutes, he disconnected and didn't call back. I called a different customer service number, another long hold, then told he can't help and I'd have to call Corporate back again. So I've been hours on the phone at this point trying to resolve this. Given how terrible the service has been to date, I guess I shouldn't be suprised the complaints line has a huge call volume.