Originally Posted by
bmr12
So to be clear, I've read the terms and conditions of the convention; they don't have any conditions to take over any hotel reservations. The hotel is not the location of the convention or even that near the convention hall.
I've got a call into MR CS to see what can be done. My colleague (also a Plat) called and had the charges reversed and some MR points put into his account as a goodwill gesture. I'm still waiting, but I called a couple of days later.
The convention is Mobile World Congress in Barcelona--not a small affair by any means. I'll post more when I get a resolution.
Mobile World Congress in Barcelona is probably like IBC in Amsterdam. It's considered a "citywide special event" because the convention takes over the entire town basically & special (higher) pricing is imposed, whether you're attending the convention or not, along with different cancel rules.
When I first started attending IBC I booked through the Marriott website which was more expensive than through the convention hotel booking service, but at the time the convention had a deposit/long cancel timeframe & I didn't know if I'd be at the show until close in. Then the Marriott & the Ren in AMS added similar verbiage to what you described re: prepay/long cancel & about that time the convention hotel booking service dropped the deposit/long lead time on cancel & their rates were less than on the Marriott website, so now I book through the convention booking service (at still elevated pricing but not as bad as on the Marriott website).
I think you've got a good chance of having a similar resolution as your colleague simply because you've got documentation showing the rate rules at time of booking & they were not prepaid/30 day cancel. It's not your problem you were able to book before the property loaded in their special terms.
Cheers.