I was having trouble getting a reservation for this Firday, 3 days hence. I found one place that was vastly overpriced and made a reservation there, just in case. I kept looking and found one for less than half as much. So 20 minutes after I made the first reservation I called back. The reservation clerk informed me that there may be additional charges because I didn’t cancel within 7 days. I told her that this is not a typical policy, and as she did not inform me that if I canceled I would be charged, and due to the fact that only 20 minutes had transpired they had certainly not lost any business because of this. I thought the cancel by 6 pm the day of a reservation for a confirmed reservation was a federal law. Is this true? Further, if they do try to charge my card for something does the fact that the policy is most atypical, AND I was not informed of it when I made the reservation grounds for denying the charge on my credit card, should one appear?
I’ve never heard of “cancel by 6” being a Federal law. I’ve got a listing here of “partner” hotels that my company prefers we use, and their cancellation times range from 3PM to 6PM.
The final word on your situation will be the fine print that you should have read when you made the reservation. I’m assuming that you made the reservation either on the hotel’s website, or by using something like Expedia or Travelocity, either of which have their own cancellation policies, distinct from the hotel’s policies.
Wait. She’s saying you should have given cancellation notice seven days in advance for a booking made only three days in advance? Even if that is in their standard terms, I think It will qualify as unfair contract terms in this instance.
When I worked in the hotel business, it was very hard for us to make these kind of charges stick if the customer challenged them through the credit card company. Many times, we lost. It’s sort of an iffy situation-- you recieved nothing in return, and the hotel doesn’t have your signiature.
I would be pretty surprised if there were Federal laws governing hotel reservation policies. There are Federal laws about credit card practices, but the individual practice of a hotel is probably regulated by a state.
But IANAL.
Hotels can set whatever policy they want, though they usually cover themselves by making their cancellation policy clear.
You’re saying that you’re paying and getting nothing, but that would be the case if you didn’t cancel until 8 PM with a hotel that has a 6 PM cancellation cutoff. They would charge you in that case, so it shouldn’t be any different if they say “no cancellations” and charge you.
Federal law does not mandate any particular cancellation policy.
Now, you certainly can dispute the charges and the hotel may not bother pushing the issue. The rules are probably more of a way of impressing the importance of cancelling the reservation than a way of raising money; if you called a couple of hours late to cancel, there’s a good chance they’ll waive the fee. There’s no point in pissing off a customer.
I work as a CSR for a large hospitality corporation-9 different brands, mostly in the family/budget class and I can tell you there are no laws concerning cancellation policies. Give me any good sized city and I can show you cancellation policies from by 4 pm 72 hours prior to arrival to 6 pm the day of arrival. For areas with special events (college games/NASCAR) or heavy tourist activity 5, 7, 14 or 30 day cancellation policies are not uncommon. For really big events (Sturgis Rally, Super Bowl, etc) you can see 90-180 day cancellation policies. BTW, it doesn’t matter that you made your reservation after the cancel policy, your reservation is simply considered uncancellable.
If you made your reservation through a national call center, a 800 number, the best thing to do is call the hotel directly and attempt to cancel through them. Many times the hotel will cancel where the central reservation agent cannot. I would advise you not to tell them you found a lower rate as your reason why you want to cancel.
Xgemina is right on. Call the hotel and cancel. Get a cancellation number and the name of the person you talked to. Write it down and save it.
Let me say this again: Write it down and save it.
If the hotel chooses not to cancel your reservation, dispute the charge on your credit card immediately. If you used Visa/Mastercard, they will most likely find in your favor. American Express will generally side with the merchant.
Xgemina is right on. Call the hotel and cancel. Get a cancellation number and the name of the person you talked to. Write it down and save it.
Let me say this again: Write it down and save it.
If the hotel chooses not to cancel your reservation, dispute the charge on your credit card immediatley. If you used Visa/Mastercard, they will most likely find in your favor. American Express will generally side with the merchant.
Actually, I made the reservation by direct phone call to the hotel, and cancelled 20 minutes later via a phone call to the same hotel. I was told that what the person read on the screen was that cancellation of this reservation “may incur additional charges.” The hotel was the Sleep Inn, which evidently is part of a large chain of a variety of budget motels. It sounds like, should they try to charge me, that I will be able to successfully complain to the CC company insasmuch as this is surely not the usual policy given the hotels in the chain. It turns out, I was having so much trouble because there is a special event (parent weekend at a local college), something I knew nothing about at the time since my trip was totally unrelated to the school. I think that taking the reservation without informing me of the special policy due to unkown to me special event should take care of it. I did not get either a cancellation number or the name of the person taking the call. I will attempt to obtain those tonight although it is obvious she really did cancel, given the message she then read to me.
What is the reasoning behind that? Certainly the hotel will have no problem filling the vacancy, and probably at a higher rate.
Also, what would happen if I canceled and the Hotel charged me one night’s stay as the cancellation charge and I showed up anyway? Could I demand the room I paid for?
The truth is, if you threaten to dispute the CC charge and it wasn’t a last-minute thing (and from the OP it certainly sounds like they’ll have plenty of time to re-fill the room), IME 99% of the time the hotel will not charge you. And if they do, you’ll likely win anyhow.
You’d be surprised how indignant a hotel can be. I once showed up 8 hours late (badly delayed flight) to a hotel that said they would charge me if I didn’t cancel by 6pm - and they not only charged me, but they sold my room anyhow! So I showed up at 2:00am, fully ready to take possession of my room, they charged my card, and re-sold my room, telling me to “hit the road” and find another hotel! And IME that’s fairly typical of the sorts of shennanigans they try to pull.
You would not believe either how much time it took to get the charge off of my credit card.
What is your basis for this statement? Everything I have heard previously, including from merchants and even people whose job is to try collect from customers who challenge a charge, is that nobody fights more for their customers than American Express.
I currently work in the Credit Card Operations department for a major hospitality company.
We can not dispute Gauranteed No-Shows - if you get charged for a guaranteed no-show and dispute it through your issuing bank, then we will have to eat the chargeback. There was no card swiped at the hotel nor a signature captured.
The reason why we still charge for no-shows is that we count on the fact that the majority of the people are ignorant about this and thus will not request a chargeback.
They may fight for their customers, but they also have agreements with the major hotel chains. As long as the cancellation policy is part of the reservation process, Amex will generally side with the merchant. I say generally. In the past three years I can’t remember losing a No Show charge to Amex. Most travel saavy Amex customers know this. The customer will usually call here first and whine to us and ask us to remove the charge.
And swannguy I don’t know where you work, but unless the company you work for is operating under a merchant agreement like no other I’ve ever seen, you are wrong. I am looking at my current Discover and Visa/M/C agreements and both have an area devoted to how to deal with no show charges.
The reason you may lose all your C/B’s is because you are not handling the reservation/cancellation procedure in accordance with your merchant agreement.
Think about it, guy, if what you said about not having a swipe or imprint or signature were true, how could anything be sold over the internet? Or how could businesses take orders by phone. Protection is given, but you need to follow a very strict set of guidelines. In our case, we’ve deemed it easier to not mail out cancellation confirmations, bill the no show and see what sticks. Again I say much toughter with Visa/MC than with Amex.
Please remember that I am not a no-show, and in fact, if I had a guaranteed reservation and did not show or cancel by 6 pm I would pay the charge. What I am incensed about it the idea that this hotel may charge me something because I had a reservation for about 20 minutes that was cancelled 3 days before the show date.
If you are really incensed, I would suggest that when you call back to get the cancellation number, you ask to speak to the General Manager or the Reservations manager. Explain your situation and ask for an assurance that you will not be charged. And get the name of the person you talk to.
To me, the “You may incur a charge” is just bizarre and would annoy me to know end as well. Either you are or you aren’t, tell me one way or the other. Don’t tell me maybe. That in and of itself should make it easy to dispute with your credit card company should they decide to charge you.
The long cancel policy helps ensure the people who do book are more than sure they are going and weeds out the maybe crowds. If hotels don’t do this or people will book up all the rooms at the hotel as far out as possible without necessarily having firm plans to actually attend (ie. man I’ld love to go/be cool). Then they bow out at the last moment when they realize that they aren’t going to make it or decide it costs too much. The problem is while they have their reservations no one else can book at the hotel. This causes other people, perhaps with firmer plans, get turned away to seek properties further out or decide not to go b/c they can’t find accommodations.
While the hotel may be able to fill it’s vacancies from those who didn’t book ahead of time or refugees from an overbooked property, its a headache for the hotel (especially when they thought they were booked up for the last 6 months). Also, people that have booked ahead of time have had time to get used to the idea that their paying $200 for a room that normally goes for $50…a walk-in has it jumped in his face and thats when you get scenes in lobbies.