Originally Posted by
Saral
If I have booked a non-cancelable rate and I assume the card has been charged, what happens if I amend the reservation to a refundable rate and then cancel it?
1.to take advantage of this "loophole"....
you need to modify the advance booking to flex prior to hotel charging your associated CC
2. once card CC charged, you can't modify booking
3. even with trick all you do is cancel after modifying to flex which means that you are not automatically charged.
The hotel is still entiltled to charge you, hotel even has record of booking and if hotel checked booking can prove the change, but is not something hotels are on top of right now.
4. If abuse of this loophole grows, I can see hotel rooms software , eg Opera, being updated to report such changes (bar->flex->cancel) for hotels to manually charge.