Hotel Review: Staybridge Suites Odessa, Texas

Having spent 10 days in San Antonio over Thanksgiving, Shae and I made our way on to Odessa. When I mentioned to someone that we’d be spending five days in Odessa, they were surprised as they didn’t think it would be worth visiting.

To be honest, they weren’t far wrong!

We’d picked Odessa because we were trying to see as much of Texas as possible and if we didn’t visit that area, we’d miss a huge chunk of the state. It turns out there wasn’t much to see in Odessa, but at least our accommodation was free.

That’s because our five nights at the Staybridge Suites Odessa were booked using points. We’d originally booked a stay at the Residence Inn Odessa, but we cancelled that and booked the Staybridge Suites after it was included on IHG’s PointBreaks list.

It wasn’t a terrible stay, but it wasn’t great either. As for our room key situation, that was just plain bizarre – more on that shortly.

Here’s a review of our five nights at the Staybridge Suites Odessa, Texas.

Check-In

We arrived at the hotel at about 6:30pm. There weren’t any other guests at the front desk, so checking in didn’t take too long.

I’d checked the hotel’s website just before we entered and saw that there were three one-bedroom suites available. When making our reservation, only queen studio suites were available to book using points, so I asked if we could get an upgrade. I have Spire Elite status with IHG, one of the benefits of which is supposed to be a room upgrade. They’re not guaranteed though and we’ve not had much luck in the past getting an upgrade.

Despite those three different rooms being available to book, the front desk agent wasn’t able to upgrade us. I got the impression that it might’ve been because she couldn’t work out how to do it, but I’m not certain. I didn’t push it, but it was disappointing that we weren’t upgraded given that it’s supposed to be one of the benefits we receive.

Key Issues

After a few minutes we had our keys to room 433 and we headed upstairs. Unfortunately neither of those keys worked, so I had to go back downstairs to get new keys. This second interaction with the front desk agent was a little weird. She said the keys didn’t work because it’s not always possible to activate them properly given our stay was crossing from November into December.

That was a strange excuse – since when are hotels not able to activate room keys when your stay crosses into a new month?! Even stranger was the fact that our stay wasn’t even crossing into December in the first place – we’d be checking out while it was still November.

Either way, she gave me two more room keys and so I headed back upstairs. The first (now the third) key I tried didn’t work, but thankfully the other one did. That key stopped working a couple of days later, so I headed back downstairs to get new keys from a different front desk agent – now our fifth and sixth keys. One of those didn’t work, so we ended up getting a seventh key.

Room

When entering our studio suite, the kitchen was on the right, the living room area straight ahead on the left and the bedroom and bathroom off to the right.

Kitchen

The kitchen was fairly well-equipped with a sink, full-size fridge-freezer, a double stove top, coffee maker, microwave and dishwasher.

The cupboards had sets of three of everything – dishes, plates, glasses, etc. The microwave contained glass bowls with lids for storing food items, but the lids were awful. They didn’t seal well and so kept popping off the top, meaning our room smelled of fish one day due to the ceviche I was making in one of the bowls.

Below the stove top were some pots and pans, while the countertop had cooking utensils, silverware, etc.

Living Room

The living room had a corner sofa which included a chaise longue, along with an ottoman and side table.

To the left of the sofa was a desk and office chair. The desk had some additional shelving on top which was helpful as additional storage space.

Behind the office chair was a wall-mounted shelving unit holding a lamp and coffee making items.

Between the living room and the bedroom was a dresser with a TV on top. The TV was surprisingly small, so this seemed to be an area where the hotel cheaped out. There were also only ~35 channels which isn’t that many compared to other hotels we’ve stayed at.

Bedroom

The queen bed was comfortable, as were the pillows. There was also a padded stool at the foot of the bed which our dog Truffles appreciated as it made it easier for her to jump up on the bed.

Another nice feature of the bedroom area was that the lamps on each side of the bed had a power outlet available.

One downside to the bedroom area was that there was very little space between the bed and the dresser. Given the space between the bedside table on the right side of the bed and the wall in the above photo, it’d have made more sense to shift everything over six inches to the right. That’d have given a little more space than this…

Off to the right of the bedroom area was a closet containing an iron, ironing board and luggage rack.

Bathroom

Opposite the closet was the sink and vanity.

That held a bar of soap and a small bottle of lotion.

The bathroom itself was to the left of the sink and contained a walk-in shower and toilet. The shower had a slightly strange setup as half of it had a glass door, while the other half had a shower curtain. It’s been years since we last stayed at a Staybridge Suites, so I’ve no idea if this is how they design their bathrooms nowadays, or if it was a makeshift fix by this particular property after the other glass door broke.

The water pressure of the shower was good. Rather than having small bottles of toiletries, there were larger bottles of wall-mounted J.R. Watkins shampoo, conditioner and shower gel. I don’t mind this as it means far less plastic wastage.

Overall, we were happy enough with the room, but we’d have much preferred a one bedroom suite as it would’ve meant I could have the light on in the living room at night to work after Shae went to bed.

There were a few other areas where it could’ve been improved – better food storage containers in the kitchen, more space between the bed and dresser, a better TV, etc. – but the room was very clean and the bed was comfortable, both of which are much more important factors.

Breakfast

Breakfast is included for all guests when staying at the Staybridge Suites Odessa and Staybridge Suites properties in general. At this particular property, breakfast was served until 9:30 am during the week and until 10:30 at weekends.

The hot options changed every day, with scrambled eggs and sausage patties the day I took these photos. The scrambled eggs weren’t good though as they were dry and rubbery.

The other options tended to be the same each day:

Some parts of breakfast were better than others. The coffee cake was tasty, but the bread and muffins were rock-hard every morning, as though they’d been left out all night.

Something Shae and I both enjoyed was that there was a soda machine as well as a juice machine.

They also had a coffee and tea station. Well, I say they had tea, but it was Lipton; as a British person, Lipton doesn’t really qualify as proper tea 😉 Lipton is to tea what Budweiser and Coors Light are to beer.

There was always plenty of seating available at breakfast as there was a large area with tables and chairs…

…along with a separate room off to the side with additional seating.

Evening Social

Staybridge Suites properties offer an evening social in the evenings from Monday to Wednesday. I don’t know if the time of the social is the same at all their properties, but the Staybridge Suites Odessa held it from 5:30-7:30pm.

These evening socials include complimentary food and drink, including beer and wine.

The food wasn’t exactly gourmet, but it was tasty enough and provided enough for it to count as a meal. Similar to breakfast though, the bread and buns provided were always rock-hard and so weren’t edible.

Amenities

The Staybridge Suites Odessa has several amenities you can take advantage of during your stay. One of the ones we appreciated most was the guest laundry area as the washers and dryers didn’t cost anything to use.

Just off the laundry area was the fitness room. Unfortunately the door between the two rooms seems to get left open, so the fitness room gets extremely hot when the dryers have been used. The fitness room doesn’t have a thermostat, so there’s no way to mitigate the heat from the adjacent room.

The hotel has an outdoor swimming pool, although I think that area was closed during our visit as we were there towards the end of November.

Also outside were a couple of seating areas with a grill and outdoor fire.

If you need to use the internet during your stay or print something off, there’s a business center with a couple of computers and printers.

Just off to the right of the front desk is a pantry area where you can buy snacks, microwave meals, drinks, toiletries, laundry detergent, etc.

Pet-Friendliness

Seeing as the Staybridge Suites brand is an extended stay brand, they’re pet-friendly. The Staybridge Suites Odessa charges a $75 fee if staying 1-6 nights and a $150 fee for 7+ nights.

There were plenty of grassy areas around the hotel where we could walk our dog Truffles, along with a dedicated pet area at the back of the property.

We also took Truffles to Central Bark Dog Park which is about 15 minutes to the west of the hotel. The dog park was a good size, with separate areas for large and small dogs. If you’re visiting in the summer though, be aware that there’s not much shade. What you see in the photo below is all the shade provided.

Service

Service at the hotel was OK overall – seemingly well-intentioned, although not always very competent (e.g. two separate staff members not being able to activate room keys properly).

One moment during breakfast is worth noting though. The person in charge of the breakfast area spent about half an hour chatting to someone else who appeared to be another staff member. Well, to be fair to the person in charge of breakfast, she wasn’t so much chatting as she was being spoken to, as the other lady dominated the conversation.

We didn’t care about them shooting the breeze, but it was the content of the conversation that was more the issue. At one point, the lady doing all the talking starting talking about how all Mormons were going to hell. That’s an extremely inappropriate conversation to be having around guests. We’re not Mormon, but there was no way she’d have known that.

Wi-Fi

The Wi-Fi at the Staybridge Suites Odessa was free, had a decent connection and was a good speed.

Location

The hotel is on the edge of Odessa and didn’t really appear to be near anything, but it only seemed to take 10-20 minutes to get anywhere around town. It’s just off I-20 which makes it a good place to stop if you’re traveling through.

There isn’t too much to say about its location otherwise as we weren’t overly impressed with Odessa. The city itself seemed a little depressing, with dust lingering in the air and having a faint smell of gas. By the end of our stay, I could understand why someone had questioned why we’d be visiting Odessa!

Parking

Parking at the hotel was free and there was plenty of it.

Cost

This is where things get a little weird. The cost of a hotel in cash usually somewhat correlates to its price when paying with points. Hotels in big cities are expensive, so you have to use a lot of points. Hotels in the suburbs are usually cheaper and so cost fewer points.

The hotel market in Odessa seems to diverge from that though. Cash prices are extremely expensive there – they were mostly in the $200-$350 per night range when I looked which is insanely expensive. Someone mentioned there are a lot of energy companies there, so it might be that hotels can charge a premium because those companies are willing to pay that high rate.

Stays on points are different though, presumably because anyone wanting to visit the area for non-business reasons would balk at those prices. The Residence Inn which we’d originally booked was a category 1 property and so would’ve only cost 10,000 Marriott Rewards points per night. Similarly, we booked the Staybridge Suites for 10,000 IHG Rewards Club points per night when it was on their PointBreaks list.

I have both the old and new IHG credit cards which gave additional points savings. The new card offers the fourth night free on award stays, while the old card gives a rebate of 10% of your points when redeeming them. That means our five night stay should have cost 50,000 points, but only cost 36,000 points. In addition to that, my Spire Elite status earned us 500 points as a Welcome Amenity, reducing the cost of our stay to 35,500 points.

By contrast, the cash rate would’ve been $330.29 (!) per night. That means we got 4.65cpp (cents per point) of value from our stay which is excellent value for IHG Rewards Club points. Most people value them at ~0.5cpp, so we got ~9x the normal value.

Final Thoughts

Our stay at the Staybridge Suites Odessa was OK, but nothing amazing. The lack of a room upgrade despite having IHG’s top status and there being better rooms available was disappointing, as was having five out of seven room keys not work.

It’s great that breakfast is included and that there’s an evening social three times a week, but some of their food – particularly their bread and muffins – was inedible as it was so hard.

It’s not a bad option though if you need somewhere to stay in Odessa using points, especially as it has a comfortable bed and a kitchen. Just don’t set your expectations too high.

Truffles Approval Rating

Truffles gives the Staybridge Suites Odessa four paws out of four – pawfect! They had a reasonable pet fee, it was a quiet hotel and there was lots of grass around the property for her to do her stuff.

Our Rating

Room = 4.2 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.4 / 5
Food = 3.5 / 5
Location = 3.8 / 5
Service = 3.7 / 5
Overall Value = 4.3 / 5*

Total = 3.98 / 5

* I’ve based the overall value on using points. If I’d based it on the cash price, it’d have been 1 / 5.

Address

Staybridge Suites, 810 S John Ben Shepperd Pkwy, Odessa, TX 79761