Hilton Wants to Impose 7-Day Cancellation Policies
Meg Butler July 31, 2017
Hilton recently tightened its current cancellation party, announcing that Hilton guests would soon have 48 to 72 hours (depending on the market) to cancel without a penalty.
Now, they may be considering even stricter cancellation policies in the future. Recently, during a call with investment analysts, Hilton CEO Christopher Nassetta announced that “new rate structures” are coming to Hilton. Some may include a 7-day cancellation policy — with extra charges for more flexibility:
From Skift:
Expect Hilton to debut new rate structures that enable more flexible cancellation policies. “We have been testing some other things,” Nassetta noted. “Hopefully sometime in the second half of the year we will layer incremental opportunities on top of that that will start to bifurcate … creating fully flexible and semi-flexible pricing structures that would require a cancellation within seven days.”
For more information on this story, visit Skift.
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Ironically, Hilton is at this point disincentivizing the use of their credit cards in favor of something like the CSR (which has travel insurance attached), though I expect legal fights over what is a "change in plans" versus a "weather interruption" to start jumping. It does stand out that the CEO is kvetching about inventory management problems when he's also mentioning bumper profits. Clearly that problem isn't hurting the bottom line /too/ much, now, is it? One thing that does surprise me is the trend towards the whole reservation being forfeit versus airlines where you at least get a credit for some of your cost back (either as a voucher or as a refund, depending on the situation).
This is a disappointing trend. When a city is effectively closed down due to weather, it may be impossible for me to reach my hotel. Meanwhile, guests already at that hotel may be stuck there for an additional night. So, Hilton will charge me for cancelling a reservation, while simultaneously renting my room to another guest? Now they are charging twice for the same room. So far, it seems these policies are not being uniformly applied across all Hilton branded properties. I recently chose a Hilton Garden over an Embassy Suites because this particular ES had a 48-hour cancellation policy, while HG did not. Going forward, I will probably just not make any hotel reservations until the day of arrival. Unlike airlines, who often have a stranglehold on a particular route, no hotel has the market dominance to attempt last minute price-gouging. If they do attempt such behavior, there is always Priceline.
It's the same with many companies forcing their business travelers to chose the cheapest non-flexible air tickets. In the end, they get bitten in the back but still won't learn!
Just like the airlines that took away free checked bags and then returned it as an "amenity" for favored flyers, look for Hilton to move in this direction but then waive it as a "special" courtesy to Honors members. Probably top tier Honors members get to cancel same day, 2nd tier on 24 hours notices.... until the only people affected are non-Honors. Of course, many hotels already offer non-cancellable discounted rates, this is just one additional increment between non-cancellable and current practices.
Cheaper prices for more restrictive cancellation policies? That's really not a bad idea or any different than booking a lower rate that is non-refundable (which happens now).