Amex Travel and Hotel booking

dinglebert

I had booked the Hard Rock in London for a night in September to see Jimmy Buffett. I did this using Amex travel who I have used in the past with no issues.  Today as expected the concert was postponed to Sept 21.  My booking was non refundable but I had checked the Hard Rock site and they were allowing non refundable bookings to be moved.  I phoned and they stated no problem until I gave them my booking details.  As it was booked by amex travel they said I had to contact them.  I did.  They got back to be this afternoon to say no change allowed as Expedia won't allow it.   Bit confused as no idea what Expedia had to do with any of this.  It turns out that Amex used expedia to do the booking and they won't budge.  Basically, expedia just get to keep the money even though the hotel would allow the change.

Life__Goes__On

Try  going back to Hard Rock,  see if they could do anything since you been rejected,  also see if you can find out if Expedia have paid for your room. 
You could also ask if it's possible  for Hard Rock  to cancel the  booking (showing HR cancelled, not you), if you re-book for Sept 21.

dinglebert

Update none of which is good.

Hard Rock have stated they require Expedia to ask them to move the room forward.  If asked they are happy to do so.

I can't speak to Expedia as my booking was with Amex.

Amex tell me that Expedia say they can't contact Hard Rock until a week before the date as Hard Rock won't allow them to which flies in the face of what Hard Rock say.

Amex say thats all they can do they can't ask Expedia to contact Hard Rock.

I can't get Hard Rock to do anything as they say the contact has to be Expedia.

Farce.  I would cancel Amex in a futile protest but I have a number of other bookings needed paid back to Amex for the cruise I won't be going on next month although Cruise and Maritime still have not cancelled it. If I cancel getting the refunds is going to just be more difficult.

Life__Goes__On

That's a total nightmare

dinglebert

An update which is both good but still bizarre.

I contact Amex last week and asked to them to follow up as the time frame was now within the Expedia one to contact the hotel.  I got a reply back from Amex today saying that the room had been cancelled for free and I would be getting my money back.  Thats the good news.  However, they also stated they hadn't asked Expedia to cancel the room so I must have.  I hadn't.

I phoned the Hard Rock to check if they had moved the booking to the new date or just cancelled.  They couldn't understand how the room had been cancelled and said it must have been Expedia.

I then get another email from Amex saying Expedia are denying cancelling the room and stating Hard Rock must have done it.

At the end of the day I get my money back which is of course good.  However a couple of lessons learned for me.

One - don't through an agent who then goes through another agent to make the booking.  I have no contract with the second agent but they have all the power.

Two - not going to be booking any non-cancellable rooms in the near future.