JackE

As usual, when I book a room on points it says, vaguely, during the booking process and in the confirming e-mail that the late cancellation charge is a 1 night fee.

On my account reservation page, the cancellation is shown thus:

"If you cancel after 6:00 PM hotel time on 03/17/2016, the forfeiture amount will be USD $749.50. There may be additional applicable charges and taxes."

The current room rate is $209 without using any discounts (and much less for AAA, etc.)

Not planning to, but what would happen if I were a no show? Would it settle for the points I paid, or the $750 + tax? Hopefully, not both.

LIH Prem

You can just pay with points, but you have to arrange that I think. It's here somewhere.

ETA: here's a reference (searched for "award no show")

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/starw...el-points.html

So to answer your question, it would settle for the no show charge + tax, and you can switch it to points charge only.

Yes, I agree the no-show charge is ridiculous when standard rate is $209.

-David

TerryK

Standard no-show fee for awards.@:-)

No-show fee is based on Rack but you can request to switch to points, as noted by LIH Prem. BAR fluctuates and has nothing to do with your no-show fee as you didn't lock in it. It is possible that BAR becomes $750 on day of your no-show.

spgplat21

Ridiculous any way you look at it, but as mentioned you can forfeit the points instead.

pewpew

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BB10; Touch) AppleWebKit/537.35+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/10.3.1.2576 Mobile Safari/537.35+)

Is it really based on rack? My award res at the Sheraton University City PHL has a ~$198 cancelation fee. That seems awfully low for rack at a Cat 4 (and tempts me to see if I can use the guaranteed plat availability to book a blacked-out night...)

supatight80

Have you been pre upgraded to a suite? Sometimes when they "pre-upgrade" or whatever the FT police calls it, the penalty is whatever the rate of that upgraded room is.

Or perhaps you can contact that call centre. It could be some error.

I have a booking at the Westin D.R. that says:

"Guarantee and Cancellation Policies
Your room is guaranteed with a(n) MASTER CARD card.
Cancel by 4:00 PM Hotel time 21 days prior to avoid 21 Night penalty. There may be additional applicable charges"

This is a 1 night stay and I highly doubt they'll charge me a 21 night penalty for a 1 night stay cancellation...

Dr. HFH

Gee, if they charged me $700+ for no showing when there are rooms available at $200+ that night, I'd be inclined to protest the charge with my credit card company.

Often1

Problem is that "they" don't charge anything. "You" agree to pay $700+ when you book the room and then fail to cancel according to the contract into which you enter.

A chargeback dispute would be the worst approach here as the chains and their properties have software packages which document all of this stuff and can produce a package for the chargeback dispute unequivocally demonstrating the fee, that you agreed to it, and that you failed to live up to the terms.

A better approach is not to stay at properties which do this or to deal with the risks, e.g. carry travel insurance which covers this high a penalty. Coverage is cheap and the number of properties charging high fees (perhaps not this high) is growing.

If you do mess up, call the property immediately. See what can be done. If there's a 72-hour cancellation, calling at 71 hours is better than 24 hours and so on. Sometimes you can get the penalty waived, sometimes the date shifted, and sometimes a credit for a future stay. All about having a non-confrontational conversation in which you understand that you don't have a leg to stand on, so you are asking for help and not bashing the other guy's policy.

cdancer20

I have a room in points booked next Saturday (V-Day weekend.) They actually have a two-night minimum that night but I was able to get them to wave it since I have c+p bookings on the days surrounding. Anyways room rate for two nights is about $230. Cancellation is $440 on one room and $880 on second room of exact same type lol.

taina2

Why give them your business with such ridiculous rules? Is it the only property available in the area?

JackE

Indeed. Shortly after my original post, I cancelled the reservation.