I had booked an award redemption stay at an Autograph collection hotel in Europe. I was intending to book it for next summer for multiple days, but turns out I had booked it starting at the day of booking instead. Likely the Marriott date picker just reset during my searches and I didn't notice it (day happened to be the same just month had reset back to Dec). Clearly my fault.

I realized the mistake only after getting a message from the hotel thanking me for my stay. I called Marriott asking about the cancelation fees / refunding of points with a no-show, and was told the hotel had marked me as checked-in!

The Marriott terms and conditions say: "If a Member cancels a guaranteed Award Redemption Stay reservation outside of 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."

I was expecting that I'd be charged a cash fee but instead I just lost the points for the whole reservation, as the hotel has marked me as checked in. I asked the hotel why they did this and they responded saying they just do this for all no-shows for all the days of the reservation.

Any tips or thoughts for this situation? Am I understanding correctly I should have been charged a cash fee and gotten the points back? Where is the cash fee defined?