Hotels.com and VAT reclaim

davelewis

Book Direct with the hotel? You might get loyalty points, extra incentives to book direct. No middle man - no problem :-) If you stay regularly in hotels over Europe you might be better off booking direct with the same chain.

Doshwaster

davelewis wrote: »

Book Direct with the hotel? You might get loyalty points, extra incentives to book direct. No middle man - no problem :-) If you stay regularly in hotels over Europe you might be better off booking direct with the same chain.

When I travel on business I always try to book direct with the hotel and never pay in advance. That way you get reward points and the bookings are cancellable. You might pay a little more for this but it gives you the most flexibility.

For leisure travel I'll use 3rd party sites if they are cheaper as my plans are unlikely to change.

madein83

Lots of misleading advice here. VAT causes so much confusion, especially for overseas companies.

To set the record straight -

Hotels.com is an agent. They have a line item that states "taxes and fees", which includes all applicable taxes bundled up. This includes VAT. They do it this way because elsewhere in the world, "taxes" can often mean multiple things-- hotel occupancy tax, state/county level taxes, tourist fees, etc.

Hotels.com include the following line on their invoice:

"Transactions!for!hotels!within!the!European!Union!not!subject!to!VT when!in!accordance!with!articles!306!310!of EC!Directive!2006/112/EC."

Article 306!310 refers to the "tour operator scheme". Basically, it boils down to passing on the end hotel's taxes, but not adding any extra on yourself. As an agent, they're providing the convenience of billing for your client, but your contract is actually with the end-hotel.

So where do you get a formal VAT invoice?

You can ask for a folio from the front desk when you check out that will show the applicable charges itemised (including the VAT), with a zero sum owed (since you paid already via hotels.com) This is your canonical VAT receipt; treat anything you've received from Hotels.com to date is merely a payment receipt, not an itemised VAT invoice.

If they refuse or say it's pre-paid, that's irrelevant - ask to speak to their manager, or e-mail their head office later. I've never had to escalate this further, and I can't imagine many hotels would have an issue with providing an invoice... it's standard practice.

If your bill is < £250, just use Hotels.com payment receipt as a simplified invoice. If it's over, then do the above.

Sometimes booking direct is cheaper, but rarely when you factor the cashback / reward nights / price matching. The only advice I'd offer is to opt for cancelable nights. Hotels.com have wormed out of price matching on several occasions (especially when using something like Hotel Tonight, where there's no accessible URL for them to verify and they won't trust my screenshots); in those cases, I just hit 'cancel' and booked elsewhere. But that's just to answer the naysayers on this thread, rather than address the topic of VAT.

Happy travels!

DCFC79

madein83 wrote: »

Lots of misleading advice here. VAT causes so much confusion, especially for overseas companies.

To set the record straight -

Hotels.com is an agent. They have a line item that states "taxes and fees", which includes all applicable taxes bundled up. This includes VAT. They do it this way because elsewhere in the world, "taxes" can often mean multiple things-- hotel occupancy tax, state/county level taxes, tourist fees, etc.

Hotels.com include the following line on their invoice:

"Transactions!for!hotels!within!the!European!Union!not!subject!to!VT when!in!accordance!with!articles!306!310!of EC!Directive!2006/112/EC."

Article 306!310 refers to the "tour operator scheme". Basically, it boils down to passing on the end hotel's taxes, but not adding any extra on yourself. As an agent, they're providing the convenience of billing for your client, but your contract is actually with the end-hotel.

So where do you get a formal VAT invoice?

You can ask for a folio from the front desk when you check out that will show the applicable charges itemised (including the VAT), with a zero sum owed (since you paid already via hotels.com) This is your canonical VAT receipt; treat anything you've received from Hotels.com to date is merely a payment receipt, not an itemised VAT invoice.

If they refuse or say it's pre-paid, that's irrelevant - ask to speak to their manager, or e-mail their head office later. I've never had to escalate this further, and I can't imagine many hotels would have an issue with providing an invoice... it's standard practice.

If your bill is < £250, just use Hotels.com payment receipt as a simplified invoice. If it's over, then do the above.

Sometimes booking direct is cheaper, but rarely when you factor the cashback / reward nights / price matching. The only advice I'd offer is to opt for cancelable nights. Hotels.com have wormed out of price matching on several occasions (especially when using something like Hotel Tonight, where there's no accessible URL for them to verify and they won't trust my screenshots); in those cases, I just hit 'cancel' and booked elsewhere. But that's just to answer the naysayers on this thread, rather than address the topic of VAT.

Happy travels!

Didnt need to drag it up did you.