Cancellation -- Now 72 hrs?
#31
Join Date: Oct 2013
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In addition, many large corporate contracts waive the policy and substitute either 24 hours or sometimes 4 or 6 PM local day of arrival. It's the one-off customer or smaller business which is paying this.
To be fair, if you are looking for a room and see a property as sold out, you move on. This policy will cause people to book once they know what they need and will leave last minute high-rate rooms available for people who want to book and use them. Not really different than most typical US domestic penalty air fares.
And while the policy is similar to airlines, the environment surrounding the policy is not. If my flight is cancelled, I can't get to my hotel, and I'm by definition inside the cancel window. Is the penalty waived in that case if I cancel my room?
I agree. I can't think of a more customer-unfriendly policy at Marriott. Just a few years back, most hotels were 6 pm day of arrival. Then 24 hours, etc. At that time in my life, I was often traveling to two cities per week for work, and schedules changed or flights were delayed/cancelled/missed occasionally. I can't imaging being a road warrior now and having a 48 or 72 hour cancellation window. And even after the SPG acquisition, which added more resort/leisure properties, Marriott is still primarily geared toward business travel, IMO.
I have had to call the property directly a couple times and explain my situation to a manager to avoid the charge. I do think, as another poster suggested, that higher level elites should have some kind of automatic waive of the policy. If you stay 50 nights in a year, that's enough to suggest that you may have to cancel at least 1 stay at the last minute. If not a complete waive, maybe they give everyone a few waivers to use -- Gold gets 1, Platinum 3, Titanium 5 or whatever. Enough to cover unavoidable situations, but not enough so that people are abusing it.
#33
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However, I can see this resulting in more speculative bookings, after all us top-tier members play the game better than others. My suspicion is the properties are trying to get a solid handle on their occupancy rate to better schedule staff, it's about the only variable cost that can be managed. To staff presuming being full can be quite costly, especially if they end up with a lot of cancellations/no shows. Some simple things can get very complicated quickly.
#34
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However, I can see this resulting in more speculative bookings, after all us top-tier members play the game better than others. My suspicion is the properties are trying to get a solid handle on their occupancy rate to better schedule staff, it's about the only variable cost that can be managed. To staff presuming being full can be quite costly, especially if they end up with a lot of cancellations/no shows. Some simple things can get very complicated quickly.
#35
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And at least airlines offer flexible and unrestricted fares which allow low or no cost changes/cancels. The thing about the new hotel cancel policies is they apply even to the most expensive rack rates.
As a result, I sometimes don't book hotel now until very close in. This obviously carries risks and you can't do it during a high demand period, but the new cancel policies definitely encourage new booking strategies.
#36
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Yes I think its true. Maybe not all companies still negotiate this but I do see for one company I worked for when they negotiated with preferred hotels (not all hotels in each chain) the policy they negotiated was for 6pm day of arrival so some companies due still try for this.
Last edited by neo_781; Feb 7, 2019 at 9:19 am Reason: clarify
#37
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I agree. I can't think of a more customer-unfriendly policy at Marriott. Just a few years back, most hotels were 6 pm day of arrival. Then 24 hours, etc. At that time in my life, I was often traveling to two cities per week for work, and schedules changed or flights were delayed/cancelled/missed occasionally. I can't imaging being a road warrior now and having a 48 or 72 hour cancellation window. And even after the SPG acquisition, which added more resort/leisure properties, Marriott is still primarily geared toward business travel, IMO.
Last year I had a project where I was told that I'd be on the road for an indeterminate amount of time. I had one week to prep my house & affairs before living out of a suitcase for the next few months, not knowing where I'd end up each night nor how long I'd be in a particular city. All that I knew was I wouldn't be back in my own bed for awhile. Plans sometimes changed multiple times a day. Fortunately, most of the hotels I stayed at were understanding about this, and for some of them it paid off big-time. All of the bookings were last-minute. The one Springhill Suites alone got $6k of business out of me in 3 months last year. If they hadn't been flexible, I would have taken that business elsewhere. I should be their ideal customer -- filling their last rooms at the last minute, not picky about room types, not the type of squabble about points or welcome gifts. Just give me a clean room and good service, and I'm happy. When I see 72 hr cancellation policies, I'm more likely to book elsewhere.
#38
Join Date: Jan 2015
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What annoys me about this (Hilton started 72hrs last year) is that they sell an "advanced purchase" and a flexible purchase that cost more. Here pay more, but you still better know what you're doing 3 days out. If you pay the more $ it should be 24hours.
#39
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1.I don't believe there is any FT rule against doing exactly that
2. Kidding aside, I don't see anything wrong with commenting negatively on a very nasty trend (among all the major chains) toward ever more punitive cancel policies. Saying we have a choice kind of misses the point, because what tends to happen is these are introduced market by market, leaving consumers little meaningful choice.
2. Fair enough. Agree going to 72-hours is not customer-friendly. What's annoying is in the same area (checking downtown LA, Pasadena, etc) brings different cancellation policies, ranging from 1-3 days so it's not even consistent (although that's good for those who are still less than 3 days). Means we have to be extra vigilant when booking reservations to note the cancel & not just assume. I know I've been working under a must cancel 2 days out mindset; now I need to be mindful it could be 72.
Cheers.
#40
Join Date: Oct 2013
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The thing is, if I'm cancelling a stay at the last minute, it's out of my control probably 100% of the time (which is why I can expense it of course). That's different than changing a restaurant reservation or other reservations that have a penalty attached. I doubt many people are cancelling a hotel last minute because they don't feel like going on vacation any more.
#41
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One of the more repugnant features of what the hotels are doing (in the US) is that they will play follow the leader in a particular market. When properties started going to 48 hours in SF, it quickly became the norm throughout the city. There's a good chance we will see this with 72 hours (and on that point, I see that Marriotts in SF have now gone to 72. As have Hyatt and Hilton).
#42
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I believe that these exist solely for the purpose of gaming Expedia.com and other OTAs -- get your hotel to show up as the lowest price in the search results. They're hoping that it'll get you to their page and you'll pick one of the regular rates from their hotel rather than this come-on rate. It's just like Basic Economy fares with the airlines. Maybe some FT'ers book them, but I believe the majority of us stay far away from them.
#43
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I know Hilton started also doing semi-flex, which is slightly cheaper and +2 days from "flexible". I wonder when someone will bring out a day of cancellation rate that costs more?
#44
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But for which stay dates? During Spring Break and Summer, or also in slower fall and next winter?
#45