I have a 'flexible rate' reservation in an ibis style hotel in Europe for next week and received the following e-mail from the hotel:

"I contact you regarding your reservation in our hotel for the night of xxx. As this is a very busy period, we ask you to guarantee your reservation by either a credit card or a prepayment. Reservations without a guarantee will be cancelled at the latest on 11/05/2013."

I do not really mind and gave them my credit card number to guarantee the booking (in fact, I am wondering why the Accor webpage didn't require a credit card in the first place for this booking), but I found a bit strange that they would just cancel the booking several days before the actual stay. Is that something that happens more commonly? It has never happened to me before.