I made an all points booking at the Royal Hawaiian and the cancellation policy states this:
Cancelling Your Reservation
- You may cancel your reservation for no charge until ______(3 day[s] before arrival).
- Please note that we will assess a fee if you must cancel after this deadline. If you have made a prepayment, we will retain all or part of your prepayment. If not, we will charge your credit card.
I've been looking at alot of hotels on Marriott's site, for point bookings, and have seen this vague "we will assess a fee" over and over again. So I would then look at the same property and select "Standard Rates" to view that cancellation policy, and there I would see a definitive dollar amount. And I've been assuming that that amount shown would be what my credit card would be charged if I cancelled the points booking within 3 days of arrival. But I also considered that the hotel might charge the one night at their rack rate - since nothing's stipulated they'd have legal recourse to do so, right?
Since I'm right now trying to determine the amount of Trip Insurance to take out, I just called the Royal Hawaiian and spoke with a "Guest Service Manager" in the front office.
To my surprise, he said that if I did cancel within 72 hours of arrival, that
my credit card would NOT be charged (even though that's what Marriott's website says, and even though that's what's stated in my emailed confirmation),
but rather, I would forfeit one night's worth of points (60,000).
I expressed my disappointment, since Trip Insurance would conceivably reimburse me for a dollar amount cancellation penalty, but I imagine having little chance of receiving any monetary equivalent to 60,000 points from them.
So I asked him - would I have the option of having my credit card charged instead? And the Guest Service Manager said no.
But in Marriott's T&Cs, under Section 3 "Redeem Points", it says I should get back all of my points but that I would be charged for late cancellation:
3.2.c. The standard guarantee and cancellation policies of a Participating Property will apply to Award Redemption Stay reservations including, without limitation, all minimum length of stay requirements, credit card guarantee requirements and charges for late cancellation, no-shows, and early check-out.
i. A Point refund may be issued for a stay that is less than the number of days on the Redemption Award, but the Member must inform the Participating Property’s front desk in advance of the early check-out time in order for the Point refund to be issued to the Member’s Account.
ii. If a Member fails to cancel a guaranteed Award Redemption Stay reservation within the permitted cancellation period, the Participating Property will charge the applicable cancellation fee to the credit card provided by the Member at the time the reservation was made and the Points that were redeemed will be re-deposited into the Member’s Account.
Has anyone out there cancelled a point booking with a similarly worded cancellation policy and lost one night's worth of points?