Hotels.com won't cancel a single night of a cancel-for-free booking

yo2048

Hi,

Back in February, I booked 4 nights in a hotel via hotels.com for this past week.  In this uncertain times due to covid, I specifically chose a freely cancellable booking, anytime up to a few days before the first night.  Specifically the booking confirmation email says:

"Cancellation policy - Free cancellation until 00:59, 28/10/2021 (GMT+02:00)

• If you change or cancel this booking after 00:59, 28/10/2021 property’s local time (GMT+02:00), you won’t be refunded any of the payment.
• We’re unable to refund any payment for no-shows or early check-out."

Unfortunately I ended up being in contact with someone with Covid, which means I was not allowed to travel to that country before the 2nd day of my booking.  I contacted hotels.com before the cancellation deadline to ask them to cancel the first night, worth £128, but they were only offering £30 back initially (and then a couple of days later I would have had to pay extra to cancel a night!).  It basically appears they would not amend the booking, but cancel it fully and do a new booking, but the price per night had gone up since then making it pointless.  I insisted I found this misleading and unfair, and refused to cancel the first night to only get less than 25% back hoping they'd become reasonable.  They did offer to email the hotel itself to see if they'd cancel and refund the first night, but they didn't get back to me since then so I basically got nowhere with this, and now I'm back to the UK.

Is this common practice to only allow full cancellation and refund of whole booking, but not a single night without stating it explicitly like they did here?

If not, what would you say would be the best way forward?  is it worth using the Section 75 (I paid with a credit card) or chargeback?  which one would you try first?

Thanks in advance.

TheMilkmansDad

depends om the T&C's of the booking. But i would think it reasonable to assume that cancel = the whole thing, otherwise it would have said part-cancellation. So i do not think either chargeback or S-75 is applicable here.

It's not my area of expertise though so will leave for others to offer advise.

Jumblebumble

yo2048 said:

Hi,

Back in February, I booked 4 nights in a hotel via hotels.com for this past week.  In this uncertain times due to covid, I specifically chose a freely cancellable booking, anytime up to a few days before the first night.  Specifically the booking confirmation email says:

"Cancellation policy - Free cancellation until 00:59, 28/10/2021 (GMT+02:00)

• If you change or cancel this booking after 00:59, 28/10/2021 property’s local time (GMT+02:00), you won’t be refunded any of the payment.
• We’re unable to refund any payment for no-shows or early check-out."

Unfortunately I ended up being in contact with someone with Covid, which means I was not allowed to travel to that country before the 2nd day of my booking.  I contacted hotels.com before the cancellation deadline to ask them to cancel the first night, worth £128, but they were only offering £30 back initially (and then a couple of days later I would have had to pay extra to cancel a night!).  It basically appears they would not amend the booking, but cancel it fully and do a new booking, but the price per night had gone up since then making it pointless.  I insisted I found this misleading and unfair, and refused to cancel the first night to only get less than 25% back hoping they'd become reasonable.  They did offer to email the hotel itself to see if they'd cancel and refund the first night, but they didn't get back to me since then so I basically got nowhere with this, and now I'm back to the UK.

Is this common practice to only allow full cancellation and refund of whole booking, but not a single night without stating it explicitly like they did here?

If not, what would you say would be the best way forward?  is it worth using the Section 75 (I paid with a credit card) or chargeback?  which one would you try first?

Thanks in advance.

The cancelation police states that it is free cancelation of "this booking"   it does not say free cancellation of part of the booking and so it would be very unfair for you to abuse the Hotel  by charge back /section 75
Also if you chargeback section / 75 the best you will get is a full refund which you don't want

Westin

yo2048 said:

Hi,

Back in February, I booked 4 nights in a hotel via hotels.com for this past week.  In this uncertain times due to covid, I specifically chose a freely cancellable booking, anytime up to a few days before the first night.  Specifically the booking confirmation email says:

"Cancellation policy - Free cancellation until 00:59, 28/10/2021 (GMT+02:00)

• If you change or cancel this booking after 00:59, 28/10/2021 property’s local time (GMT+02:00), you won’t be refunded any of the payment.
• We’re unable to refund any payment for no-shows or early check-out."

Unfortunately I ended up being in contact with someone with Covid, which means I was not allowed to travel to that country before the 2nd day of my booking.  I contacted hotels.com before the cancellation deadline to ask them to cancel the first night, worth £128, but they were only offering £30 back initially (and then a couple of days later I would have had to pay extra to cancel a night!).  It basically appears they would not amend the booking, but cancel it fully and do a new booking, but the price per night had gone up since then making it pointless.  I insisted I found this misleading and unfair, and refused to cancel the first night to only get less than 25% back hoping they'd become reasonable.  They did offer to email the hotel itself to see if they'd cancel and refund the first night, but they didn't get back to me since then so I basically got nowhere with this, and now I'm back to the UK.

Is this common practice to only allow full cancellation and refund of whole booking, but not a single night without stating it explicitly like they did here?

If not, what would you say would be the best way forward?  is it worth using the Section 75 (I paid with a credit card) or chargeback?  which one would you try first?

Thanks in advance.

Yes, afraid so.  
Industry norm with OTA's and most wholesaler hotel booking platforms to "cancel & rebook" rather than adjust an exist reservation.  

As someone else points out the cancellation refers to "this booking".

IMO you have no S75 or chargeback claim.

TELLIT01

I can understand the OPs confusion.  Yes, there is the explicit statement "Cancellation policy - Free cancellation until 00:59, 28/10/2021 (GMT+02:00)" but the next section refers to "change or cancel....." 

I do however agree that the 'free'  refers to cancellation, not modification of the booking. 

onashoestring

At first glance I would have hoped that a flexible booking could be amended without additional costs but looking at the fine print , it does state that it’s the whole booking that can be cancelled and refunded not a part of it . I am sure that you are not the only one to have been caught out , so I am grateful that you have highlighted this potential problem. 

You can claim on your travel insurance if your cover includes cancellation because of being a close contact.

yo2048

Ok thanks all.  It seems I was more surprised than most of you.  As the consensus is that this practice is fair (even though we'll all agree it would be much better if they made it more explicit), I won't invoke section 75 or chargeback.

And yes @onashoestring indeed the fall back is the travel insurance.  I wanted to check first if hotels.com should refund me as it seemed the most logical thing to do (and I thought I'd get the full night back whereas I lose the excess with the travel insurance).