Reasonable Hotel Refund Request?

Amirkhan226

Hi all,

New on here & would like to find out your opinions an advice.

Last year in May me and my friend made a trip to California. We spent 9 days in total and booked a hotel in Yosemite national park (Mammouth Mountain inn).

We left San Jose late afternoon to make the approx 6hour drive to the hotel in Yosemite. However at approx 10pm driving through the national park we encountered snow and icy conditions which in-turn meant that the road we were taking was closed off and hence could not make it to the hotel (this approx an hour and a half away from the hotel that we had booked.

Me and my friends decided to turn around and go back to the city and look for a hotel there as we had no mobile signal to make any sort of phone call or email the hotel.

We stayed at 2 separate hotels for the 2 nights and have the booking confirmation to prove this.

The issue now is we are trying to claim for a full refund as the road was closed due to bad weather however we have been going back and forth the the booking agent and their parent company and the hotel itself and pretty much not getting anywhere.

Is there anything I can do? The payment was made in full and on a debit card.

Thanks for your advice

comeandgo

Who are you claiming the refund from? Your insurance company? The hotel owes you nothing. You did not turn up.

Gavin83

Can you not claim on your travel insurance?

Issue is you clearly aren't to blame for the weather but neither are the hotel. They had an empty room which they weren't able to resell. Therefore I think you'll have a tough time getting it back from the hotel.

Were there no other routes you could have taken?

elsien

What do the terms and conditions of the booking say?
When you say you are getting nowhere, what is the hotel/ booking agent actually saying?

Amirkhan226

No, we did not purchase any travel insurance...
When I meant we are not getting anywhere, The booking agent said to contact their parent company who then informed me they will contact the hotel itself after a while I contacted the hotel itself and they advised me they had no communication from the parent company or the booking agent.

Amirkhan226

I understand where you are coming from however after driving for a good part of 7 hours at which time it was 10pm ish and were in the middle of no-where with no signal we thought the best option would be to drive back to the city or find something along the way back

comeandgo

I agree you did the right thing in returning but the hotel had a booking saying you were coming, when did you actually contact them to tell them you could not come?

Amirkhan226

The initial contact was as issue aswell, When we did get internet signal we found out that the booking agent only operates Mon-Friday and this was on Sat - so we had to wait 2 days to contact them plus the time difference from CA to UK.
We called the hotel to advise them and they said they will make a note on the booking and they also acknowledged the bad weather that night however the money was still with the travel agent and they hadnt received it and so to contact the booking agent for the refund, and we contacted the booking agent first thing monday morning (which was AFTER the last night we were meant to stay) who then said to email everything to them. Which we did.

I think the issue is the hotel and the booking company/parent company not communicating and sorting this issue out and just giving me the runaround

Amirkhan226

There was an alternate route which meant driving back into the city and then taking another highway to the hotel (pretty much a parallel road) but that would have taken approx 9hours ontop of the 7 we had already done

karcher

Amirkhan226 wrote: »

No, we did not purchase any travel insurance...
.

You didn't have any Travel Insurance?

You went to the States and didn't take out travel insurance! :eek:

Just thank your lucky stars you didn't have an accident or get ill and need any medical care.
The cost of the hotel would then pale into insignificance.

Amirkhan226

karcher wrote: »

You didn't have any Travel Insurance?

You went to the States and didn't take out travel insurance! :eek:

Just thank your lucky stars you didn't have an accident or get ill and need any medical care.
The cost of the hotel would then pale into insignificance.

Looking back now, maybe we should have purchased it however at the time of booking and the weather in May for California was not Snow or Icy road conditions and even the hotel acknowledged that.

We have clearly paid for 2 nights EXTRA, and are glad we are still alive considering what we faced on that journey, however now I am asking for any advice from the community if there is any possiblity of reclaiming the refund