Hotel cancellation policy

[audreyh1]

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Originally Posted by braumeister The big lesson I learned a year ago is that paying a little extra for a clear, generous refund policy is well worth it. Between hotels, airlines, and tour operators, I was out well over $1,000 and it could have been much worse.

I absolutely won’t pre-pay for hotel rooms no matter how good the “non refundable rate” is unless the time window is super short - like within a week or two and the trip is in progress. Sometimes the refundable rate is a great deal, sometimes it is not. I don’t care. I want to be able to cancel within a reasonable time.

[ivinsfan]

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Originally Posted by RobbieB Yeah, kinda weird. Usually 24 hours, no problem.

The good old days when when used to be able to cancel by 3 PM on the day of arrival. One of the big chains started a more restrictive policy and they all followed along.



This makes our snowbirding nights a little more dicey. We usually know where we want to end, but things can change. Now I have to scroll through my phone a couple hours before we want to stop hoping i can find a room.

We did a trip out East a smaller town in VA on a Thursday night in 2015 and every room in town was booked for a conference...just kept on driving

[Chuckanut]

Quote:

Originally Posted by braumeister The big lesson I learned a year ago is that paying a little extra for a clear, generous refund policy is well worth it. Between hotels, airlines, and tour operators, I was out well over $1,000 and it could have been much worse.

I accidently made non-refundable hotel reservations once. I found the hotel was far away and not as comfortable as others. I decided to leave early but then found that I was on the hook for all three nights. Lesson learned.

[Aerides]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 I absolutely won’t pre-pay for hotel rooms no matter how good the “non refundable rate” is unless the time window is super short - like within a week or two and the trip is in progress. Sometimes the refundable rate is a great deal, sometimes it is not. I don’t care. I want to be able to cancel within a reasonable time.

Me neither! and I rarely book anything that isn't at most on 24 hour notice to cancel. And when I do book, I check back every week before arriving to see if there's a better rate, which has worked well for me many times.

[athena53]

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Originally Posted by Aerides Me neither! and I rarely book anything that isn't at most on 24 hour notice to cancel. And when I do book, I check back every week before arriving to see if there's a better rate, which has worked well for me many times.

I've also found that many of the bargain "pay up front right now, no cancellation" rates on third party sites don't count towards credit on loyalty programs. It may not be a concern but it's a factor making that rate less of a bargain.

[GalaxyBoy]

For the solar eclipse in 2017 I made a reservation using a third party site as early as I could as hotels were in very high demand. Shortly before the event, I got an email from the third party saying "sorry, we canceled your reservation for no reason whatsoever and you're screwed," or something to that effect anyway. I was able to book an alternate vacation with an eclipse tour so I didn't miss out, but my holiday took a very different turn. I won't be using that booking service again.

[copyright1997reloaded]

FWIW, I've stayed in thousands of hotel room nights over the years. From 2000-2009 I was away from home about 50% of the work days, and before that perhaps 6-7 weeks a year for business and a week or two a year for pleasure.

At one point I was top tier at Marriott, Starwood, Hilton, and Hyatt. I am lifetime Titanium at Marriott (who bought Starwood).

My advice: Book with the chain DIRECTLY if at all possible. Yes, once in a blue moon you might find a better deal at Expedia, Hotels.com, booking.com, whatever. But before making that purchase, verify that it indeed is a better price than what you can get from the chain and make very sure you understand the terms and conditions (wherever you book).

p.s. frequent stays at a particular hotel can pay off. One time I was supposed to fly back to NY City to stay at a place I frequently stayed at. Due to some work changes, I needed to change where I was going and I completely forgot to cancel the booking (which had at the time a 4PM cancel policy). I called the hotel at 1AM and they cancelled the room for me without penalty. I was completely at fault, and I told them so when I called to cancel. The fact that I had stayed there 20+ times before and would likely stay there again certainly had an effect on the outcome.

[jollystomper]

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Originally Posted by JRon I’m in the hotel business and we will always give the best rate if you book directly with us. Third party sites, like Expedia, frequently tell guests things that cause us issues - like cancellations. The hotel has not received any money so therefore can not give a refund, but the guest wants their money causing a disgruntled guest. Third party sites started out providing a valuable service, but fortunately the hotel industry has caught up with them.

One of my interesting Megacorp projects years back was helping one of thew major hotel chains with techniques to integrate their "back office" computing systems with web front end applications. In discussions when gathering requirements, one of the motivators were to expand direct online booking from consumers. The subject of third parties came up, and the general comments were "they served a good purpose when our online booking capabilities were limited, but they cause problems that were perceived as our customer service problems, and we can be more efficient from both a cost and service perspective if we make it easier for people to book with us directly".

Quote:

Originally Posted by copyright1997reloaded My advice: Book with the chain DIRECTLY if at all possible. Yes, once in a blue moon you might find a better deal at Expedia, Hotels.com, booking.com, whatever. But before making that purchase, verify that it indeed is a better price than what you can get from the chain and make very sure you understand the terms and conditions (wherever you book). p.s. frequent stays at a particular hotel can pay off.

Agree with both these points. I would do this even if I have to pay a slightly higher rate, just because of more lenient cancellation/change polices and easier dealing with any reservation related issues.


I also used to travel a lot for Megacorp, and there was a time when the hotel would have a nice Megacorp rate that technically was only to be used for business travel... but in both Las Vegas and Orlando when I stayed a the same hotel several times, and mentioned i would love to stay there if I was on vacation, the hotel instantly said "book it directly with us and we'll give you the corporate rate or any "sale rate" at that time, whichever is better". Eventually Megacorp realized they could leveraged stays and get even better rates by getting the discount for employee personal stays as well.