Booked 8 nights as Silver member of several years at Royal Garden Hotel, (5 star) London 10 months in advance on non refundable. Due to illness , appointments wanted to arrive at hotel 3 nights earlier but keep a 8 night stay. Called the hotel reservations manager who said no problem. (simple request?).

Hotels.com with 2 calls to Philippines could not in my opinion have been less helpful even after berating the supervisor. There twist is as follows.Computer has to recalculate the whole reservation as a new reservation, which created a 50% plus additional charge. When i said just take last 3 nights and just stick it on the front of reservation , they recalculated it as two separate stays of 3 nights and 5 nights. Just doing a switch was not an option.

Hotels.com were totally inflexible despite hotel saying yes you change for free
.
Bear in mind i have nearly Gold status this year and many past redeemed free nights. THEY COULDN'T GIVE A RATS ... ABOUT LOYAL CUSTOMERS FROM THIS EXPERIENCE.