Scared that hotel will take legal action if I don’t pay the balance of upcoming stay

PaisleyPrinted

Hi, sorry it’s long one...

We were due to stay at a hotel in Germany later this month. I was pretty sure that the flights were going to be cancelled anyway as it was showing as ‘sold out’ for ages with EasyJet, and they were finally cancelled on Monday. In the middle of June I was worried that my husband would have to quarantine on our return anyway, as per the rules at that time, which would be a problem for his work, so I sent an email to the hotel stating that we needed to cancel. 

I had had been keeping an eye on the hotel’s website for the last few months, and had seen this message on there:   “all bookings for summer 2020 that cannot be made due to the Corona crisis and the associated travel restrictions will be easily cancelled or rebooked by us until the last day. Deposits will be retained in the form of vouchers. Should the measures be lifted and unrestricted travel be possible, our regular cancellation conditions apply”. I interpreted this to be a reassuring message for their customers, acknowledging the current travel issues and thought it meant that we could cancel until the day before if there were CV related restrictions or travel problems. When I sent the email in mid June, there was the quarantine requirement as well as the likely flight cancellation. I never received a reply to the email but assumed that was because I asked for a refund of the deposit we had paid and that they didn’t want to refund it so were ignoring me.

Anyway, today I contacted the hotel via their own messaging system, and asked them to confirm that they had received my email in mid June requesting to cancel. I received a rather blunt reply of “You cannot cancel this booking!!! You have to pay 100%”. 

The general (non CV) cancellation policy is that if you cancel up to 30 days before your stay you have to pay 100% of the whole stay cost, 31-90 days it’s  equivalent to 3 nights worth of the stay. They might deny that they received my mid June cancellation email, although I do have a copy. But even then, best case scenario might they take legal action to recover the equivalent of 3 nights stay (minus the £500 deposit, which I’ve accepted we will lose)? 

I will cancel my credit card as they have my card details and may try to charge it, but would dread a scary legal letter arriving demanding the balance. How likely is this to happen?

Does anyone have knowledge or experience of this situation please? I’d be really grateful. Feel a bit sick that we might have to pay thousands for a hotel stay we can’t even get to due to cancelled flights, although flights and hotel were booked separately.

cubegame

You will be able to cover the cost on your travel insurance.

peachyprice

I think there has been some misunderstanding on your part. Their policy is a refund will be given if there are Coronavirus travel restrictions in place at the time of your arrival, there are no restrictions in place now so their normal cancellation policy applies.  Cancelling your card will not cancel the charge, it will still go through to your account.  

Have you tried speaking with them about this misunderstanding and perhaps asking for dates to be moved, or looking for alternative flights? 

peachyprice

cubegame said:

You will be able to cover the cost on your travel insurance.

I'm not sure they will, there are no travel restrictions to Germany and as they hotel was booked separately from flights insurance is not obliged to pay.  OP can still get there, just not on original flights. 

Voyager2002

To answer the original question, the hotel will not take legal action. The hotel has details of your credit/debit card and can use these to take payment; you can then dispute this with your card provider (who will critically examine the hotel's statement about cancellation and may prove helpful). Cancelling your card would not make any difference to this.