Hotel won't refund my booking

MisterD21

Hello All,
I've had an event booked for a while and since being on lockdown, I've managed to get hotel bookings refunded or rescheduled.
However, one hotel just won't do either. If it was a cheap hotel, I wouldn't be as bothered but this one in particular just won't budge. They won't offer a reduced refund, they don't allow rescheduled bookings, they won't offer a full refund. All they will do is cancel the booking.
Where do I stand with this please?
Thanks
Dan

Aylesbury_Duck

What date is the booking?  I assume it was a non-refundable room so if you cancel, you lose out.  If the booking is imminent, they are likely to cancel anyway, in which case you'd get a refund or the re-booking you want.

Westin

MisterD21 said:

Hello All,
I've had an event booked for a while and since being on lockdown, I've managed to get hotel bookings refunded or rescheduled.
However, one hotel just won't do either. If it was a cheap hotel, I wouldn't be as bothered but this one in particular just won't budge. They won't offer a reduced refund, they don't allow rescheduled bookings, they won't offer a full refund. All they will do is cancel the booking.
Where do I stand with this please?
Thanks
Dan

Depends.

Is this a hotel in the UK or somewhere else?
How did you book this hotel?  Direct, with an online travel company? As a package?  With a UK travel firm?
What do the terms & conditions say about cancelling and refunds?
When is the booking for?

Julia1975

Hi
I booked a flight and hotel to Bucharest with British Airways for 21 May, at the end of march I was offered a voucher which I applied for. We had paid a deposit and had been paying the rest of in instalments so we had not paid the full amount, I was offered a refund for the flight but not the hotel, essentially the money we had paid so far they had set against the hotel and refunded just £86 towards the flight. When I called I was told the hotel was non refundable- but it was cancelled by them and clearly we could not travel, so my question is what happened to the £250 we had paid for the hotel - they are not even offering a voucher or a change in dates which we would have been happy with, instead we were told we had simply 'lost' that money. is this legal?
Thank you for you help!

Life__Goes__On

Julia1975 said:

Hi
I booked a flight and hotel to Bucharest with British Airways for 21 May, at the end of march I was offered a voucher which I applied for. We had paid a deposit and had been paying the rest of in instalments so we had not paid the full amount, I was offered a refund for the flight but not the hotel, essentially the money we had paid so far they had set against the hotel and refunded just £86 towards the flight. When I called I was told the hotel was non refundable- but it was cancelled by them and clearly we could not travel, so my question is what happened to the £250 we had paid for the hotel - they are not even offering a voucher or a change in dates which we would have been happy with, instead we were told we had simply 'lost' that money. is this legal?
Thank you for you help!

How was it billed?  was there a grand total?  or flights and hotel separately?

Julia1975

I paid the £150 deposit and then had to clear the balance by a certain date so I just made random payments through ny BA account - I paid with a direct debit card. It was a total amount as opposed to flight/hotel figures

Life__Goes__On

Julia1975 said:

I paid the £150 deposit and then had to clear the balance by a certain date so I just made random payments through ny BA account - I paid with a direct debit card. It was a total amount as opposed to flight/hotel figures

It's clearly a package holiday under  The Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations 2018
https://www.abta.com/tips-and-advice/is-my-holiday-protected/new-package-travel-regulations
You shouldn't have been offered only part of it,  it's either flights & hotel,  or nothing.

Julia1975

Yes thats what I thought, thank you for clarifying this

Julia1975

So, I have just spoken to British Airways who have told me that because I applied to accept a 'voucher' the terms and conditions of the voucher stated that the hotel was non refundable. How very misleading

Life__Goes__On

Julia1975 said:

So, I have just spoken to British Airways who have told me that because I applied to accept a 'voucher' the terms and conditions of the voucher stated that the hotel was non refundable. How very misleading

They are wrong, you can't agree to any T&Cs that override legal protection.

Julia1975

I have lodged a complaint so will wait and see what happens, its may not seem a lot but I resent just losing £250 through no fault of my own