Starwood Preferred Guest - W Hotel Seminyak: Reservation changed to prepaid, non-refundable

I hope someone can help me on this.
In March, I booked a villa at the newly-opened W Hotel Seminyak for 2 nights under the promotional rate. When I researched the restrictions on the promotional rate, it shows up as a non-prepaid and I can cancel my reservation up to 3 nights prior to the start of the reservation before incurring a 1-night penalty.

The confirmation email that I received also says:
Rate Plan
Villa Lto

Rate Plan Description
Room Only

Guarantee Rules and Cancellation Policy
Your room is guaranteed with a(n) AMEX / OPTIMA card.
Cancel by 6:00 PM Hotel time 3 day(s) prior to avoid 1 Night penalty
Room taxes may be charged on penalties.

As of today, something came up and I needed to cancel my reservation. Lo and behold, the following restrictions came up for my reservations at spg.com:

Cancellation Policy:
The time for canceling without penalty has passed. If you cancel, the forfeiture amount will be 100 percent. There may be additional applicable charges and taxes.
Rate Plan Description:
Villa Lto. Room Only.
GTD/Deposit Policy:
USD 598.00 deposit is due on 04/13/2011 and will be charged to the credit card provided.

What happened to my fully-refundable, non-prepaid rate? How can I still cancel my reservation without incurring the $598 penalty?

...What happened to my fully-refundable, non-prepaid rate?

The hotel probably realized that they left the fully-refundable, non-pre-paid conditions in place for a rate where it should not have been.

How can I still cancel my reservation without incurring the $598 penalty?

Communicate with Corporate Customer Service and advise them what you have told us here. Ask them to fix it so you can cancel according to the original policy you were given.

You can reach them via email at customercare@starwoodhotels.com or by phone at 800-328-6242.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Social Media Specialist
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

guest.forum@starwoodhotels.com

When is your reservation for? I assume that it is more than three days away. If that's the case, it seems that you're on pretty secure ground, given that you have an email from Starwood confirming your understanding of the booking.

Others may well have more specific and useful advice, but I'd think that you could call Starwood reservations, reference the email and see if the reservations agent can locate it in their system. If not, then find out where to forward it at Starwood.

And if neither of these options prove satisfactory, you could challenge it with Amex. If you want to prevent Starwood from charging your Amex account, you might even take that action today.

Again, though, other folks may have better advice. Hope it all works out.

PS: No sooner did I post this than I saw the (as always) useful advice from William.

When is your reservation for? I assume that it is more than three days away. If that's the case, it seems that you're on pretty secure ground, given that you have an email from Starwood confirming your understanding of the booking.

Hi Thunderroad, my reservation is for 22-24 April, so still more than 3 days away. I'll definitely give customer care a call rightaway. Thanks for the advice!

I hope someone can help me on this.
In March, I booked a villa at the newly-opened W Hotel Seminyak for 2 nights under the promotional rate. When I researched the restrictions on the promotional rate, it shows up as a non-prepaid and I can cancel my reservation up to 3 nights prior to the start of the reservation before incurring a 1-night penalty.

The confirmation email that I received also says:
Rate Plan
Villa Lto

Rate Plan Description
Room Only

Guarantee Rules and Cancellation Policy
Your room is guaranteed with a(n) AMEX / OPTIMA card.
Cancel by 6:00 PM Hotel time 3 day(s) prior to avoid 1 Night penalty
Room taxes may be charged on penalties.

As of today, something came up and I needed to cancel my reservation. Lo and behold, the following restrictions came up for my reservations at spg.com:

Cancellation Policy:
The time for canceling without penalty has passed. If you cancel, the forfeiture amount will be 100 percent. There may be additional applicable charges and taxes.
Rate Plan Description:
Villa Lto. Room Only.
GTD/Deposit Policy:
USD 598.00 deposit is due on 04/13/2011 and will be charged to the credit card provided.

What happened to my fully-refundable, non-prepaid rate? How can I still cancel my reservation without incurring the $598 penalty?

I would call asap and inquire about it. they should honor what the original confirmation email said. The reason being that the confirmation is essentially a receipt of a valid contract between you and the hotel (i.e. room, price, conditions, etc). no contract may be changed without a meeting of the minds. Since the hotel changed it without your consent or knowledge, I think you have grounds to appeal the charges if they take payment prior to your arrival. Looking at your rate plan, I see it said villa LTO, LTO is a limited time offer and more often than not is a non-refundable rate but it's not your fault that the confirmation was incorrect. With that said, they should give you the courtesy of allowing it to be a refundable rate due to their error.

This is not uncommon. It happened to me once before in Starwood and another time in Hyatt. In both cases my stay coincided with large conferences as a result of which the hotels changed their reservation policies - seemingly retroactively. But since I had emails containing the original confirmations with the flexible cancellation policy, it was no problem at all to get the hotels in both cases to honour the original terms.

I hope someone can help me on this.
In March, I booked a villa at the newly-opened W Hotel Seminyak for 2 nights under the promotional rate. When I researched the restrictions on the promotional rate, it shows up as a non-prepaid and I can cancel my reservation up to 3 nights prior to the start of the reservation before incurring a 1-night penalty.

The confirmation email that I received also says:
Rate Plan
Villa Lto

Rate Plan Description
Room Only

Guarantee Rules and Cancellation Policy
Your room is guaranteed with a(n) AMEX / OPTIMA card.
Cancel by 6:00 PM Hotel time 3 day(s) prior to avoid 1 Night penalty
Room taxes may be charged on penalties.

As of today, something came up and I needed to cancel my reservation. Lo and behold, the following restrictions came up for my reservations at spg.com:

Cancellation Policy:
The time for canceling without penalty has passed. If you cancel, the forfeiture amount will be 100 percent. There may be additional applicable charges and taxes.
Rate Plan Description:
Villa Lto. Room Only.
GTD/Deposit Policy:
USD 598.00 deposit is due on 04/13/2011 and will be charged to the credit card provided.

What happened to my fully-refundable, non-prepaid rate? How can I still cancel my reservation without incurring the $598 penalty?

Hey all,
Thanks for all the advice!

Emailed the Corporate Customer Service and the matter was referred back to the hotel. When I called the reservation desk the next day, the reservation was already cancelled with no penalty.

Just wondering is there a reason for not dropping a note to the hotel directly rather than going through the customer service centrally?
I always go to hotel directly if I have an issue and everything has been resolved to date.
I would only go to Customer Service if I am unable to get a resolution at the hotel - not sure if I am missing something.

Just wondering is there a reason for not dropping a note to the hotel directly rather than going through the customer service centrally?
I always go to hotel directly if I have an issue and everything has been resolved to date.
I would only go to Customer Service if I am unable to get a resolution at the hotel - not sure if I am missing something.

You can drop a note to the hotel directly using their published email address on issues mentioned in this thread.

Contacting Customer Service means seeking assistance from an associate to follow up with the property on these issues. Proper documentation by the CS associate is usually carried out, especially if a response is needed from the property. That would be helpful as you do not need to repeat your request again when there is no response.

apguest.forum@starwoodhotels.com

Thyetus Lee | Social Media Specialist
Starwood Customer Contact Centre (AP) Pte Ltd