It Depends Where
Had experience with this a couple of times and found that wood hotels in North America are much more accomodating about refunding non-refundables. Never had a problem. Made a mistake once in London at Park Lane and it was tough bananas and was out $500. The Nice Meridan tried to charge us but luckily we had a cancellation number (lucky I kept it as it was months old) and I know they would have charged us otherwise. The
European hotels will sock it to you given any opportunities.