TheWiseOne

This is more of a heads up posting. Apprantly, M&M Smith bookings take full deposit on all bookings regardless of whether they're fully flex and they do not state it on the booking page. I made a provisional booking for Stockholm in a couple of weeks and they have taken the full amount off of me, which was a surprise as I thought it was flexible. This is also particularly annoying as my plans have changed in the past couple of days so I now need to cancel, which isn't easy.

This is in hand to be fair, but I thought I would post in case people are thinking of doing a Ski or Safari booking which could be £/$10's of thousands. Additionally, be aware you have to also call to cancel as well, since IHG do not allow M&M Smith bookings to be cancelled over the app/net.

EmeraldLady

In such cases, maybe try phoning the hotel - I had something similar happen with a recent Mr & Mrs Smith booking (One Aldwych, London) - made on the Mr & Mrs S website as it is not in the IHG list. I received a mail from One Aldwych almost immediately saying full price will be taken whereupon I called the hotel and after a bit of “checking the website/Supervisor” etc they said they would honour the terms that I had seen when booking (which was cancellation possible up to one, or was it two, days before)


edited after rereading OP

TheWiseOne

Yeah, I would've done but problem here is that a number of hotels won't apply the booking to your IHG account so you won't get the points or stay credit.

UKtravelbear

Important to remember - and as the two examples above illustrate - that not all Mr and Mrs hotels are part of the link up with IHG and even those that are can have more restrictive cancellation and other terms than the usual IHG ones.

Dave Noble

To be fair - on the booking page on IHG, doing a dummy booking for Mr&Mrs Smith in Stockholm , the rate is described as Refundable does say

Deposit Rules
Full pre-payment is required to confirm this reservation.

with cancellation policy of

Cancellation Policy
Please be aware that cancellations made less than 1 hour before 17:00 on the day of arrival will incur a charge of 1 night.

TheWiseOne

On my app the only indication was that taxes were going to be collected, but I believe Sweden is a location where they don't seperate this. Apart from that all I saw was refundable with cancellation needing to be prior to 16:00 local time.

Dave Noble

I don't use mobile applications unless I really have to. On the website booking it definitely says tthat payment would be taken

The rate , as you mention, is described as 'refundable' . It could only be refundable if payment had been taken

Just done a dummy booking on the mobile application and when I select the rate it says the price and then it has

Payment Method
Full Pre-payment is required to confirm this reservation

and then has the select for which credit catd to use

SanDiego1K

I had a frustrating issue booking Zanier Bai San Ho in Vietnam. I booked it directly on the hotel website. I subsequently found it was a Mr and Mrs Smith property. Being a points junkie, I then price checked it on ihg.com. It appeared to be a modestly lower price on IHG. I booked it and contacted the hotel to cancel my booking with them. I then realized that the hotel booking was all in, whereas the IHG.com booking was base rate plus tax. This made it roughly $150 more for the number of nights I would stay. I then attempted to cancel the IHG booking, both on my phone and my computer. I had no success. I then called IHG. I was on the phone for an hour. They were unable to cancel. Finally, they opened a case with Customer Service. The only way to cancel was for the hotel to cancel at IHG's request. By now, Mr and Mrs Smith had taken a full deposit for a stay that is 3 months away. I received my cancellation today and I am to receive a refund on the room stay in a week.

This makes me apprehensive about booking another Mr and Mrs Smith property. I had to be very persistent to get IHG to cancel and it took way too much time.