Non refundable hotel booking

Bogof_Babe

I think perhaps if you have booked meals in addition to the accommodation, e.g. Premier Inn's meal deals, they have to refund you for those if you decide not to stay.

shaun_from_Africa

JReacher1 wrote: »

That implies the hotel would recruit someone especially to do this refund. The reality is it will be processed within five minutes by a member of staff they would be employing anyway so no additional costs

So using that logic, provided that there are empty seats, I should be able to simply turn up at a cinema and be allowed to walk in and watch a film without paying.
After all, as with the hotel, the cinema staff would already be getting paid and the film rental would already have been paid for so there would be no additional costs incurred by them.

JReacher1

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

So using that logic, provided that there are empty seats, I should be able to simply turn up at a cinema and be allowed to walk in and watch a film without paying.
After all, as with the hotel, the cinema staff would already be getting paid and the film rental would already have been paid for so there would be no additional costs incurred by them.

Don't be stupid these are completely different examples. If you pay a member of staff there are no additional costs when that member of staff refunds a customer. Therefore charging an "admin" fee is slightly unfair. Making that refund to the customer does not have a real cost to the business.

In your unusually poor example the cinema has made a loss as they have lost the money that you should have paid for the ticket. It may not cost them anymore but you have received a service (watching the film) which has an accepted monetary value that the cinema chain will expect to receive.

Refunding a customer but charging an admin fee means the customer has not received anything for their money.

shaun_from_Africa

JReacher1 wrote: »

Don't be stupid these are completely different examples.

You really have a chip on your shoulder when it comes to people disagreeing with your posts don't you?


With the hotel, the admin staff may well have already been paid but as they would have had to spend time on the paperwork for the cancelled booking, this is time that they couldn't spend on something else.
It's not really that difficult to understand.

JReacher1

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

You really have a chip on your shoulder when it comes to people disagreeing with your posts don't you?


With the hotel, the admin staff may well have already been paid but as they would have had to spend time on the paperwork for the cancelled booking, this is time that they couldn't spend on something else.
It's not really that difficult to understand.

Not really. It just annoys me when people come up with poorly thought out examples when they disagree with me. It's incredibly frustrating. Previously you've posted some pretty intelligent posts so I was surprised and disappointed by your cinema example. You are a lot better than that.

A cancelled booking at a hotel would be clicking a button on a computer screen. If it took five minutes to perform the whole transaction I would be very surprised. I would also say that should form the normal duties of the staff member so charging an admin fee to do this task is ridiculous and I would suspect the admin cost charged is significantly more than the actual cost.

It really is not that difficult to understand

pinkshoes

Can we stop the petty bickering?

I very much doubt the hotel re-sold the room, as I am sure there were more people than the OP that changed their plans, so no refund would be due.

The OP could claim from their own travel insurance if they have it and it allows cancellations on such terms. Probably not.

robatwork

JReacher1 wrote: »

Not really. It just annoys me when people come up with poorly thought out examples when they disagree with me. It's incredibly frustrating.

If you really found that "incredibly frustrating" you need to get off the forums. People disagree with you all the time. And sometimes their examples are well thought out. Sometimes not.

duchy

I'm trying to see where the advice to not travel to London because of the Paris incident was published.

daytona0

JReacher1 wrote: »

Not really. It just annoys me when people come up with poorly thought out examples when they disagree with me. It's incredibly frustrating. Previously you've posted some pretty intelligent posts so I was surprised and disappointed by your cinema example. You are a lot better than that.

A cancelled booking at a hotel would be clicking a button on a computer screen. If it took five minutes to perform the whole transaction I would be very surprised. I would also say that should form the normal duties of the staff member so charging an admin fee to do this task is ridiculous and I would suspect the admin cost charged is significantly more than the actual cost.

It really is not that difficult to understand

Just as a side point but when you issue a refund you are not liable to pay 20% tax as a business, because you haven't sold anything!

That alone shows where an admin cost is generated by OP's 'breach' because it will cost you to hire an accountant who can ensure that this, and similar cancellations, are accurately recorded on daily/weekly/monthly/yearly balance sheets. It can be quite time consuming and does require someone quite skilled!

Also, the receptionist who is talking to you is unable to take calls in regards to NEW BOOKINGS, so they lose money there too.

Throw in some possible third parties who need to be notified/incur a cost. Maybe the restaurant has some food which is now going to waste due to the breach etc. Who knows!

Also, they've got the fact that they were unable to sell your room for the duration of the time it was assumed that you'd be attending! Lots of potential sales lost there!

Finally, a "non refundable" price may be competitively priced based on how long away it is. They may need to REDUCE the value of the room at shorter notice simply because it is not as marketable at the original price at short notice (although it could work the other way round, but OP is only able to claim for UP TO the total amount of the room).

So I'm seeing a lot of scope for some sort of admin cost.

JReacher1

daytona0 wrote: »

Just as a side point but when you issue a refund you are not liable to pay 20% tax as a business, because you haven't sold anything!

That alone shows where an admin cost is generated by OP's 'breach' because it will cost you to hire an accountant who can ensure that this, and similar cancellations, are accurately recorded on daily/weekly/monthly/yearly balance sheets. It can be quite time consuming and does require someone quite skilled!

Also, the receptionist who is talking to you is unable to take calls in regards to NEW BOOKINGS, so they lose money there too.

Throw in some possible third parties who need to be notified/incur a cost. Maybe the restaurant has some food which is now going to waste due to the breach etc. Who knows!

Also, they've got the fact that they were unable to sell your room for the duration of the time it was assumed that you'd be attending! Lots of potential sales lost there!

Finally, a "non refundable" price may be competitively priced based on how long away it is. They may need to REDUCE the value of the room at shorter notice simply because it is not as marketable at the original price at short notice (although it could work the other way round, but OP is only able to claim for UP TO the total amount of the room).

So I'm seeing a lot of scope for some sort of admin cost.

None of those are really serious reasons why you need to charge an admin charge to refund a booking.

I agree that a none refundable room should not be refunded due to the terms of the booking. I do not disagree with anything there you have posted.

My point is that if they did decide to refund there are no real costs to the business to justify an admin fee being charged. There are costs they've lost due to missed sales etc but I wouldn't say they were an admin cost.