Viennaresidence Reviews 3

Clean appartment, nice location, good price and good customer service.

We've stayed in Vienna Residence and the unit was a comfortable studio in a central location in Frankfurt. Apart from that, I would never stay here again. I had the worst check-in experience. From payment before checking in to actually arriving at the place, the experience could not have been worse. We paid the full amount for our stay via bank transfer a day before checking in which was a Saturday. However, the management initially refused to allow us to check in on that day because they wanted to wait until the payment reflected in their account. They then asked us to pay the full amount again by credit card in order to be able to check-in. This sounded very suspicious to us and after negotiations with a higher manager, they allowed us to check in and sent the details. We also kindly requested an earlier check-in which they approved. However, on the day of checking in, we go there with 7 suitcases, only to find out that there was no key in the lockbox. We called their main number and were promised that they will look into this and we will get a call back shortly after. We decided to find a nearby cafe and stayed there until we get the key, which we thought cannot be more than an hour. However, we ended up waiting from 10:00 until 17:00 in the afternoon!!!! We kept calling and calling to no avail. Eventually, we got through to someone in the management and it seems that no one was instructed to leave the key in the box! Once we got in, we saw the place was very nice in fact. However, the problems we faced during our stay were always related to mis- or no communication at all. Another example is related to the cleaning. In our booking, there were mandatory cleanings, one of which simply didn't happen, and the other at a very bad quality. When we complained of the quality of the second cleaning, they sent the cleaners again to rectify this but without notifying us. We happened not to be in the apartment that day and all our valuables were lying around as we didn't expect that someone would just come in. Luckily nothing went missing but had it happened, I'm sure it would have been a nightmare sorting this out with this type of management. Vienna Residence does not live up to the standards of short-term accommodation options in Frankfurt and it certainly is overpriced for the level of service, or better yet the lack of service, they offer. If you have to stay in Frankfurt for a short term, please spare yourself and stay away from this place.

Short version:
Positive: Nice place in good location.
Negative: Horrible service from start to finish that made our stay unenjoyable.

Detailed version:
We stayed for approx. six weeks in a ground floor apartment. The apartment was nice, well-equipped and centrally located close to Schweizer Platz in Sachsenhausen. The description online was not accurate (e.g. 1.6m bed instead of 1.8m) but it has since been corrected.

Virtually all our problems relate to the service, which was anywhere between inexistent and unimaginably bad. Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of problems we faced:
1. Payment: Unclear communication regarding the payment options almost led to us not being able to check in on the first day despite having paid. A Vienna Residence staff member asked us to simply pay a second time (a total of 7,000 EUR) by credit card, which made us question whether the whole company was a scam. Only a last-minute intervention of the manager made it possible for us to check in on the correct day.

2. Check-in: The worst experience of all. Our check-in was confirmed for 10am but the staff forgot to deposit the key. We called Vienna Residence’s hotline 20-30 times over the next seven (!) hours but nobody ever called us back despite promising to do so at least ten times. In the end, we waited in a café for seven hours with eight suitcases. Absolutely horrible experience.

3. General communication: Emails attempting to clarify things or to solve problems were ignored and went unanswered, which made even basic communication almost impossible. In the end, communication improved slightly when one staff member was replaced.

4. Cleaning: The mandatory pre/post/mid-stay cleaning is very expensive and of insufficient quality. 159 EUR for pre/post-stay cleaning and 75 EUR every two weeks for a mid-term cleaning. The first mid-term cleaning was never done and the second one in such poor quality (i.e. no vacuuming, bathroom hardly cleaned at all, etc.) that we complained about it. Without informing us, Vienna Residence sent the cleaners back to the apartment to clean again. This is a nice initiative in principle, but we were not informed and were not in the apartment at the time. So personal items and valuables were lying around openly in the apartment - fortunately nothing went missing.

5. Invoicing: I requested a minor change in the invoice to facility reimbursement with my company. This simple request took several weeks and 10-12 email reminders.

6. Reimbursement: Vienna Residence’s General Terms specify that the deposit is reimbursed within a few days after check-out. We waited more than four weeks and had to send several reminders until we finally received the full reimbursement.

Vienna Residence managed to turn - completely unnecessarily - even the most routine steps into a problem due to poor/no communication and their dysfunctional management system for their apartment building in Frankfurt.

We strongly recommend not booking an apartment here based on our very bad experience with Vienna Residence’s service quality from start to finish.