bigsean

I'm screwed. I'm supposed to stay at the Doubletree NYC tomorrow night, booked through hotels.com. I woke up this AM to a "72 hour sale" email from hotels.com. I found the cheaper rate at my hotel, cancelled my old reservation and tried to book a new one. It won't let me, because it says I had a previous reservation and it would double-charge me.

Turns out my reservation is non-refundable. I've called Hotels.com and Doubletree and neither will reinstate my reservation but they're still charging me. They insist on charging me for a service they refuse to provide.

They keep trying to get my fee refunded, but I don't want that, I just want the damn room.

Oh travel experts, is there a way to defeat this chaos? I need my stinkin' room! Time is of the essence, I leave tomorrow morning!

(yes I realized after the fact that I should have used hotel.com's price match guarantee, I forgot about that)

obscure2k

Moving thread to Online Booking Forum.
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

bigsean

Nobody?

Colfax

I don't understand how they can cancel a prepaid nonrefundable reservation.

But if they're trying to give you a refund why not take it and stay someplace else?

bigsean

They're not giving me a refund, that's the problem. I don't *want* a refund, I want the darn room. They won't do either. They insist on canceling AND charging me for a room that I still need.

I needed the room, so I just booked it again. Hopefully they will have sympathy on me at checkin.

colmc

To be honest, I'd say you're out of luck on this one.

You pre-booked a non-refundable room, and pre-paid.
You cancelled the room, they keep the money.
The room goes back into the "pot" of rooms at the hotel.

They can't just magically undo all of that - you paid for a non-refundable service, decided not to use it. That's fine, but the money (to all intents and purposes) is dead money and it's irrelevant to them that you've decided you really do want the room now. You've no choice but to make a new booking (as you have done).

BLI-Flyer

So the moral of the story is never cancel a pre-paid, non-refundable room, there's no upside at all for you and, as you discovered, a huge downside if you change your mind. If you decide you don't want the reservation, just don't show up. I've done that on several Priceline "name your own price" rooms where my plans changed and I couldn't use the room. For me, it's a cost of using pre-paid rooms that I factor into my total travel expenses over time.

bigsean

You may be right. I just think it's absolutely asinine that they won't give me a product that I've paid for, paperwork snafu or not.

baliktad

You're mischaracterizing the situation. This is not a "paperwork snafu." A paperwork snafu is when something gets misfiled or perhaps a typo makes its way onto an itinerary.

You purchased a prepaid reservation, and then directed the vendor to cancel your reservation. Your error was in assuming that you would receive your money back. This is not the vendor's error. They are also under no obligation to provide you the product or service you explicitly and knowingly cancelled.

Once you accept the fact that the error is yours, you may be in a much better position to negotiate with the hotel directly. Call up the front desk manager, admit your mistake, and ask if they would be able to reinstate your reservation. Be flexible and willing to take any room. Recognize that they are under no obligation to offer you anything, and consider yourself lucky if the manager extends any sort of discount rate to you.

hcomAshley

Hi Sean,

Ashley here from Hotels.com. Saw your post. We want to help!
Could you please provide me with some contact information so that we can work together to try and resolve this matter?

Thanks,

-Ash

bigsean

You really should read the thread. I've admitted from the start that I've screwed up. In case you missed it, I'll say it here again, for the third time: I screwed up. I think you also missed the part where I said I booked another room. I'm in the hotel now, in a room I've now paid twice for. I'm trying to right the situation. I'm baffled as to why asking for a little assistance in fixing my error is prompting such a condescending diatribe.

bigsean

Just got off the phone with hotels.com and they've completely changed their tune. Thank you for your assistance!

catwings01

Very nice for you, Sean and glad it worked out. It doesn't make a lot of sense that the hotel - if it still had rooms available to sell - wouldn't just reinstate the nonrefundable room for you. They don't have to of course, but it isn't the most customer friendly thing to do.

A question for hcomAshley - since the hotel sets it's own cancellation policies for both prepaid nonrefundable rates and for the regular prepaid but refundable rooms offered through hotels.com (and Expedia), do you pressure the hotel to refund the money in a case like this, or does hotels.com absorb the loss for the purpose of goodwill?