A woman traveling to Las Vegas thought she had found exactly what she wanted: an affordable hotel with attractive rooms close to the Strip. There was an added bonus. It wasn’t the OYO Hotel and Casino, a property she already knew about and had deliberately decided not to book.
Ariana Patino instead reserved a stay at a place called Palette Las Vegas through Booking.com for an August trip to see Karol G. The listing showed polished images of the property and gave its address as 117 East Tropicana Avenue.
There was just one substantial problem. When Patino arrived in Las Vegas and went looking for Palette, she couldn’t find it. After roughly 45 minutes of confusion, she discovered that the hotel she had booked was connected to the very property she had tried to avoid: OYO Hotel and Casino.
The situation has since drawn scrutiny from booking platforms, consumer advocates, and Clark County officials. It also wasn’t limited to one questionable hotel listing. Another purported Las Vegas hotel called Collection O appeared online alongside Palette, while OYO’s own website at one point presented all three as separate properties.
She Went Looking for Palette
Embedded media follows; please allow a moment to load.
Patino told FOX5 Las Vegas that she and her group were heading to the city for a Karol G concert when they searched Booking.com for somewhere to stay.
“We ended up going with Palette Las Vegas. The pictures looked really nice,” she told the station.
The choice was significant because Patino was already familiar with OYO. Separate reporting from KSNV says she had specifically decided against staying there.
Her reservation was for Palette instead.
Booking.com’s listing placed Palette at 117 East Tropicana Avenue. An indexed version of the Palette listing still shows that address.
Patino said they spent about 45 minutes trying to locate the hotel after arriving in Las Vegas. Eventually, they ended up at OYO.
There was no Palette hotel waiting for them.
The Addresses Make Things More Interesting
OYO Hotel and Casino is a real hotel, and its address isn’t difficult to establish.
The hotel’s own website lists it at 115 East Tropicana Avenue. Booking.com separately lists OYO at that same address.
Palette, meanwhile, was advertised at 117 East Tropicana.
And then there was Collection O.
Reporting by SFGATE found that Palette Las Vegas and Collection O Las Vegas had appeared on major travel sites, with the listings directing travelers to the same OYO property.
The addresses created the appearance of three neighboring hotels.
OYO was at 115 East Tropicana. Palette was advertised at 117. Collection O was associated with 119.
OYO’s own search results also displayed OYO Hotel and Casino, Palette Las Vegas, and Collection O Las Vegas as separate Las Vegas properties.
This wasn’t confined to one booking website, either.
Palette listings could be found through multiple travel platforms. Expedia indexed Palette as a two-star property at 117 East Tropicana Avenue, while Trip.com and Agoda also carried listings using the Palette name and address.
Collection O similarly appeared on Expedia.
The Pictures Raised More Questions
The listings didn’t simply put another name above the same collection of OYO photographs.
Images associated with Palette and Collection O appeared to show versions of the existing property with different branding and other alterations.
SFGATE reported that photos used for the listings included images of the OYO property with its branding changed. One Collection O image showed the OYO registration desk altered so that the sign behind it instead identified Collection O.
Other images had what the outlet described as an AI-like appearance, including unusual room details and upgraded-looking features.
Patino told FOX5 that what she encountered after checking in didn’t resemble what had persuaded her to book Palette.
She described dim lighting, inadequate cooling, only three working outlets, carpet that left her feet dirty, and bedding with a musty smell.
At that point, she wanted out.
Patino said she asked whether the reservation could be canceled because she believed the advertising was inaccurate. According to her account, she was told the reservation was nonrefundable and that canceling would cost $200.
She stayed.
Then Her Experience Started Getting Attention
Patino posted about what happened, and her experience spread online.
She also took the issue to Booking.com.
According to FOX5, Booking.com eventually provided Patino with $415 in credit. She chose to receive the amount as a refund instead.
The company told the station that it was investigating both the property listing and how Patino’s complaint had initially been handled.
By the day after FOX5 contacted Booking.com, the Palette listing had disappeared from the platform.
Other travel companies were taking action as well.
Expedia and Booking.com suspended the Palette and Collection O listings while investigating, according to reporting from the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
But the most consequential questions weren’t coming only from booking websites.
Officials Went Looking for Palette, Too
FOX5 asked the Better Business Bureau of Southern Nevada to examine the business.
The BBB checked Clark County business licensing records and fictitious-name filings, according to the station.
It couldn’t find Palette Las Vegas.
Rhonda Mettler, the organization’s vice president of operations, also told FOX5 that 117 East Tropicana wasn’t a valid address.
That finding mattered because Palette hadn’t merely been presented as a room type within OYO. Travelers searching online encountered a separately named hotel at a separately listed street address.
Mettler told FOX5 that the circumstances appeared to her to be a potential “bait-and-switch scenario.”
Clark County Business License investigators also got involved and contacted OYO.
According to FOX5, the property acknowledged that the listings had been created as part of a marketing initiative and said they had since been removed. County officials reminded the business that changes at the property need to be communicated to Business License so the county can provide appropriate oversight and approval.
Nevada Consumer Affairs was also reviewing the complaints.
There has been no finding establishing that OYO committed fraud. That hasn’t stopped the word from appearing repeatedly in online reactions to the story, but the available records and official statements provide plenty to examine without making that leap.
OYO Says There Was a Plan Behind the Listings
The company offered an explanation for how travelers ended up booking hotels that they couldn’t find when they arrived.
OYO’s parent company, Prism, said it had been exploring what it described as a “dual-brand strategy.”
Under the plan, different room blocks or categories within the existing property would operate under different brands.
The company said the Palette listing went live prematurely, before renovations and signage associated with the plan had been completed.
“We sincerely regret the confusion and inconvenience caused,” a Prism spokesperson told SFGATE.
Prism said it had taken steps to correct the affected listings and would make them available only after the relevant renovations were finished. The company also said affected guests would be contacted and could receive upgraded accommodations or refunds where appropriate.
That explanation leaves a fairly unusual chain of events.
A traveler who specifically didn’t want to stay at OYO found a different hotel name online, looked through photographs representing that property, and booked it at a different street number.
Then she arrived in Las Vegas and wound up at OYO anyway.
The Building Has Had Other Names Before
Rebranding a Las Vegas hotel is hardly unusual by itself.
The OYO property has already lived under a much more recognizable name.
Before becoming OYO Hotel and Casino, the property was the Hooters Casino Hotel. The Hooters era ended in 2019 as the property transitioned to OYO.
Palette and Collection O were different in one important respect: rather than replacing the OYO name across the property, the names appeared online at the same time as OYO and were presented to travelers as separate booking options.
That distinction is why the situation attracted attention well beyond Patino’s reservation.
The problem wasn’t simply that an old hotel had received a new sign.
For Patino, the new sign wasn’t there at all.