How long can the hotel keep my money?

Katydoherty123

Sorry if this is the wrong place! I can’t find a thread about holidays abroad or hotels. I booked flights to Valencia and a hotel separately via booking.com in August 2019 the dates booked are February 13th-16th 2020. The hotel has had my money this whole time and I got an email on Saturday from booking.com saying my hotel booking was cancelled and they would be refunding me (no reason given). I chatted with booking.com to ask when I would get my money back so I can book another hotel and they’ve advised 10-15 working days so between February 10th - February 14th. Potentially I would actually be on the trip when they give the money back or best case scenario 3 days before I’m due to go. I’m completely baffled by the length of time, are they allowed to string me out for this long when it’s through no fault of my own? I also told them I would like the £1.25 foreign card charge my bank charged me for booking the hotel out of principle I shouldn’t be minus money through the whole fiasco and they said no. Very petty I know just I’m really annoyed.

Voyager2002

I would be fuming...

Personally I would contact the card I had used to pay and request a charge-back. At the very least that would cause a bit of a nuisance for the hotel.

TELLIT01

I very much doubt charge back will apply. Booking.com and the hotel have said that the money is being refunded.

Voyager2002

TELLIT01 wrote: »

I very much doubt charge back will apply. Booking.com and the hotel have said that the money is being refunded.

Firstly, the hotel would have to contest the chargeback and that would be a nuisance for them: that would give me some satisfaction in this position.

Secondly, the timeframe for the refund seems unreasonable. My own experience some years ago was that when I returned an unsatisfactory purchase to a shop and was told about a complicated and time-consuming refund procedure, I contacted my credit card company and had the money back the next day. Obviously there are important differences, but I think the key is that the card compay may choose to help the card-holder (their customer).

jpsartre

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Secondly, the timeframe for the refund seems unreasonable.

If I understand the OP correctly, the timeframe was given by Booking.com and that may just be covering themselves. If the hotel refunds straight away it shouldn't take more than a couple of days for the money to appear on the OP's card.