Alpharooms question

Baldrick_alpha

I booked flights and hotel separately. The flights are cancelled, and the necessary emails were sent out about cancellations and refund requests. The flights are being refunded from a separate website, but the hotel is through alpharooms. Reading into the terms and conditions, it looked like I had no proper recourse to a refund for the hotel in florida, since they were open and it wasn't their fault I couldn't make the booking. The booking was cancelled more than 3 months before the due to fly date, but they claimed it was still active even 1 week before the date. It has since been cancelled by them. They have offered me a credit note to the exact value of the hotel stay, but i would rather get a cash refund if possible. Since they've offered me a refund credit note to that value, am I now able to claim chargeback /section 75 on the credit card if they refuse to refund cash? I'm kind of in an area where before they offered me anything I had effectively no claim, but by offering me the refund have they admitted liability now? I'm really not sure what rights i have. 

eskbanker

If the booking was non-refundable according to the Ts & Cs then bite their hand off for the voucher, which they're not obliged to offer - doing so isn't an admission of liability so forget any notion of trying to get cash out of them or your card provider....

Westin

I would agree.

If a non-refundable rate, which typically is sold by them as the cheaper option, I would grab the voucher.

Your other recourse might be a travel insurance claim but I think you may find that long winded and may not even be success a credit voucher is being offered. You also have to consider the excess.

I see no S75 claim or chargeback for the reasons eskbanker highlights. The hotel would have had a room for you had you been able to travel to Florida.

Baldrick_alpha

To my knowledge there is no mention of it being non refundable anywhere on my charges or invoice etc. But I'm not 100% sure. If its not non refundable, does that change things? 

eskbanker

Baldrick_alpha said:

To my knowledge there is no mention of it being non refundable anywhere on my charges or invoice etc. But I'm not 100% sure. If its not non refundable, does that change things? 

Yes, if it's refundable, you'd be entitled to a refund, that's what 'refundable' means! However, what prompted you to post this:

Baldrick_alpha said:

Reading into the terms and conditions, it looked like I had no proper recourse to a refund for the hotel in florida, since they were open and it wasn't their fault I couldn't make the booking.

Baldrick_alpha

To that I mean that looking up section 75 case examples, they said explicitly that it can't be used for a hotel that remained open but i couldnt make it to for example. Which is the situation I'm in. 

eskbanker

Best not to get distracted by section 75, at this stage at least - you need to ascertain the Alpharoom terms and conditions applicable to your booking and take it from there....

Westin

Can you look back at your Alpharooms booking confirmation paperwork as it should indicate on this what the rate plan was you selected and booked?

Baldrick_alpha

Looking at the booking confirmation, there's a mention of double standard room for 7 days, 2 people, no mention of non refundable anywhere. 

[Deleted User]

Baldrick_alpha said:

 The booking was cancelled more than 3 months before the due to fly date, but they claimed it was still active even 1 week before the date. It has since been cancelled by them. 

When you say it was cancelled more than 3 months before the due date to fly do you mean you cancelled it?  And Alpha Rooms didn't act?    If so, then you would have probably been liable for the t's and c's of booking - generally an increasing scale of costs - depending on how many days prior to a holiday you cancelled.   The fact that they have cancelled now and offered you a full credit seems in your favour I would say.   

Like previous have said many chargebacks and Section 75's have failed in these instances where a full credit is offered.    Your insurance may be a possibility depending on the coverage you took out but as with banks, in many cases, they are looking at credit vouchers as acceptable.  (NB this only applies if the hotel is open not if the hotel is closed for business)

Baldrick_alpha

I requested cancellation over 90 days before the booking date. According to ts and cs I should have only lost deposit at most. They emailed one week before i would have flown were the flights not cancelled and said they hadn't cancelled my booking, and it was still active. They have offered the credit note but I'm trying to work out what my options are in regards to the cash refund I expected when I requested the cancellation in June (booking due in October)