Originally Posted by
miadeals
Every other hotel in Europe has been reasonable (eventually) and this has me pretty much swearing off anything but international chains for the rest of my life. And no I cannot just go back to Europe next summer and accept a voucher - which is what they really want, keep my money and keep someone else's money too, during a pandemic! - as we will be unable to travel for at least two years after this.
Fortunately I only had one pre-paid forward booking, which was with a Radisson hotel - they didn’t refund but only gave me a limited time credit for that specific hotel that I may or may not be able to use given it’s in Sweden, so I don’t think refunds are necessarily a certainty even with international chains.
There’s a really good chance that Europe will be open to US visitors next year, so if you are being offered a credit in the absence of a refund then maybe that’s something you should reconsider. If, on the other hand, it’s your own decision not to travel for two years then perhaps you’ll understand why the hotel isn’t offering you a refund - it’ll probably never see you again!
UPDATE: On a hunch, I checked the hotel in greece, and they have our nights listed, and they've already re-rented our villa for two of our four nights, so they can't even accommodate us even if we could come now. So clearly the plan here is they know we are Americans and can't come, so we can't show up and prove that they can't give us our villa (there aren't two rooms available or something, its an entire house), but to keep our money *and* re-rent it to someone else.
When you asked the hotel for a refund, did you also categorically state you wouldn’t be travelling? If so, they may have processed your cancellation and just applied the non-cancellable, money forfeited criteria you booked under. That would leave them free to re-offer the villa for hire. It’s probably also pertinent to ask when you asked for your refund. If it was many weeks ago, at the point when the US infection rate was still declining, the hotel could not have known what the position was going to be. If now, for imminent travel, then you have more of a case.