Non refundable hotel booking - what are my ACTUAL rights?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Grumpy_chap said:

You are dismissing the CCR right to cancel exceptions as "a few odds and ends" which is rather blase in the context of this thread. 

When you look at the Parking Eye case, previously when looking at penalties the courts were looking for a pre-estimation of loss, under Parking Eye (and another case) a new test was created of legitimate interest. 

You could argue that applies here with regards to your earlier comments of the hotel making a profit, although from what I've read legitimate interest requires wider social or economic benefits, i.e Parking Eye are stopping car parks being clogged up with cars all day that are impacting on trade by leaving genuine shoppers unable to park and without the extra money beyond pre-estimation of loss Parking Eye's business wouldn't be viable. 

You could also draw a parallel between the limits of application to Part 3 of the CCRs, or indeed anything else if the court felt the law should evolve in such a manner. However, whilst the CMA does mention the CCRs this is mainly with regards to pre-contractual information and variation clauses. 

If you use your argument about the hotel not losing out, "non-refundable" can do them more harm than good, if the customer simply can not make it the hotel can not keep the payment and rebook the room so they have a room with no one in it.

They'd be better off cancelling and rebooking to someone who will attend, might drink at the bar, eat at the restaurant, raid the mini bar in the room, buy spar treatments, etc, etc. 

That does have a question of time and availability, I've seen suggestions of a sliding scale of payment due depending upon the time left until the service.

Non-refundable is very restrictive and whilst you may feel the topic of the hotel cancelling to be a distraction, if the contract is to be balanced it either requires the room to be non-refundable for both parties (which no hotel can guarantee) or offer the same compensation in the event the trader is the one who "cancels". 

I don't really have much more to say on this topic