This is a good plan. And stop thinking that you were “cheated” somehow. You were aware of the terms of the offer. Next time research the hotel before you enter your credit card number.
Yep, I definitely wouldn’t let go of the room at this point. There may not be any availability this close to the holiday weekend, and hey, you’ve already paid for it, whether you end up sleeping there or not!
Certainly do this, but also pick up the phone and tell the manager what the issues are. IOW, give them an opportunity to correct the problem. Worst case scenario is that the room is filthy, you ask for it to be cleaned, and they ignore you. If this happens, and you decide to leave, you’ll want proof that you tried to resolve the situation should you dispute the charges with your cc company.
Also, if you’re not a member of Wyndham Rewards, I’d advise you to join. It’s free. Even though you’ll be put in the lowest tier, being a member gives you leverage over non-members.
For instance, if there are two rooms available, and one is booked by a non-Wyndham member and the other is booked by a Wyndham member, management will usually assign the better room to the member. (In order to add your WR number, you’ll probably have to go back in and modify your current reservation, or ask a reservationist to do so.
https://www.wyndhamrewards.com/trec/consumer/consumerEnroll.action?variant=
What if the place stinks?
We need some kind of device that captures the scent of a situation. Apple probably has something in the works already.
What risk do you think there is? The credit card company will do what it wants, and they nearly always side with the consumer, who is their customer. He did not use the hotel room and they still have some time to rent it. Morally, I do feel that he should not have committed without fully investigating, but legally and in reality, it’s likely he will not be held to it.
If he actually went to the hotel to check in and the room was dirty, the chargeback would almost definitely be decided in his favor. At that point they may already have turned away the last of the other people who may want the room. Rejecting it in advance based on reviews is sketchier, but at least they have a couple days to give it to someone else.
For what it’s worth, The Internet has declared every hotel I’ve ever stayed in to be an absolute shithole with all sorts of broken, torn and stained things. With the worst service and patrons, and oh! The noise!
However, I’ve never witnessed any of this in person. I always have a pleasant stay in clean rooms. The Internet likes to complain.
Even if the credit card company does the charge back there is nothing stopping the hotel from sending a bill and then sending to collections if it is not paid, is there? Of course the hotel may just write it off and no worries. If you do get a bill afterwards be prepared to pay it or take the hit on your credit rating.
If you made the reservation via the Wyndham site, you may call corporate and see if you can transfer the reservation to one of their other brands in the same city - a quick glance shows that there are Ramada’s, Super 8’s (I wouldn’t do that), and a Wyndham Resorts in the area.
It might not work, but you can always try - the worst thing that can happen is for them to say no.
If the hotel can document that the client was fully informed about the nature of the reservation, the credit card company will deny aceplace’s dispute. The hotel can, and usually will, document the terms of the reservation - there’s an audit trail. It’s annoying, but I’ve never seen a hotel that didn’t pursue chargebacks - they can’t afford to just ignore them. Ultimately, it sounds to me like the client agreed to pre-pay for the room, in exchange for about a 15% discount.
Really, I hope the room is just fine - everyone’s happy. But if it’s not, checking in, documenting the deficiencies, giving the property a chance to correct them, etc. is the best method of dealing with this. I hope it doesn’t have to escalate, and that ace and Mrs. ace have a great weekend.
Just wanted to mention that there is a service out there called roomer that will sell your non-refundable rooms to people looking for deep discounts. It looks like you get to set the price you want to sell the room for. Obviously the lower the price, the better the chance of it selling. Roomer gets 15% of the selling price as a service charge and you get paid 10 days after the guests checkout.
I’ve never used the service so I cannot vouch for it, but it looks like a good way to at least try to recoup some of the hotel charges that you would have otherwise lost for a non-refundable reservation.
To my knowledge, this is not how chargebacks work. If the credit card company finds in favor of the cardholder, then that’s it. The charge is denied and credited back to the cardholder and the vendor is out the money and that’s all she wrote.
I suspect, but don’t know, that a vendor billing a cardholder after the fact would put them in hot water in regards to their agreement with Visa/Mastercard.
Also, vendors are charged (like $25.00 or something) by Visa/Mastercard to investigate a disputed charge. They want to avoid charges being disputed even if they prevail because it costs them money. Hence, clear cancellation policies.
I wouldn’t say internet reviews are worthless but they surely should be taken with a grain of salt, especially when they’re negative. It’s basic negativity bias at its best and people’s tendency to write only when there’s a complaint. The reviews I’m most impressed with is when ratio of good vs bad is overwhelmingly in favour of good. If people are taking the time to write in praises, they must be doing something right.
If you dispute a charge with your credit card company, they will open an investigation. Sometimes they side with the vendor; sometimes they side with the consumer. If they side with the consumer, the vendor has no recourse. They cannot send the charge to collections because the charge doesn’t exist anymore.
If the OPer were to not show up and attempt to dispute the charge based on reviews he read on a website, I highly doubt his cc would side with him. That’s why he should honor the reservation and hope for the best.
FYI, a few years ago I disputed a room charge of $30 for a cot that a resort in St. John charged me for. For weeks, I went back and forth with the manager, who would not believe me when I told him that I hadn’t ordered a cot, didn’t need a cot, didn’t receive a cot, and wasn’t about to pay for a cot. He had my reservation in front of him where I had booked a 2 bdrm villa with 2 bedrooms, and 3 pull-out couches…for 4 guests. Even logic wouldn’t budge him.
Exasperated, I disputed the charge with AMEX. And won.
P.S. Turns out that the hotel also screwed up and neglected to charge me over $450 for their ferry service. Had they cheerfully refunded the $30, I’d have told him about the missing ferry charge.
I’ll take your word for it but reserve the right to think this is asinine. I agree that as far as the credit card company is concerned the charge doesn’t exist but, as a vendor, if I can show the charge is valid even though there was a challenge with the credit card charge (say a missing authorization number or I manually typed in the card number instead of swiping it, both of which will cause me to lose a chargeback) I should be able to pursue the customer directly through other available channels.
Also, check out the dates of the bad reviews. Sometimes there could be a short term problem which results in lots of negative reviews and not positive ones when it is resolved. I’ve stayed at places which some reviews said were total cesspools and which turned out to be quite nice.
I’ll have to look further, but I believe that this is a contractual agreement the vendors make with the credit card issuers. It basically says: “Look, Bub. Visa is a popular brand of credit card and you will increase business if you accept Visa. We will let you accept Visa but one of the conditions is that if a customer pays for your goods and services with a Visa card and we decide the customer was right and you were wrong, then you have to let the customer off the hook. Or just don’t accept Visa. Your choice.”
Merchants who accept Visa (or MasterCard, etc.) agree to allow Visa to act as arbiter in case of disputes. See page 12:
http://usa.visa.com/download/merchants/chargeback-management-guidelines-for-visa-merchants.pdf
I think your plan to scope out the room first rather than cancel ahead is a good one.
One thing you might consider is to see if the hotel has any nicer rooms like with a jacuzzi or nicer view or whatever. Those will be a little more expensive but might be in better shape than a standard room. If you check in and your room isn’t to you liking you might be able to get them to move you up to one of those rooms and negotiate the rate down a bit. Or you could even call and see if you could change your reservation for one of those now. It might be worth paying $15-$25 more a night for a decent room.
I must be an outlier when it comes to vacation rooms. To me, the room is where I stumble in, fall asleep, wake up, shower, then hit the beach (or whatever fun I’m there for). On vacation I’ve never turned on the room’s TV, for instance. Because of my point of view, I’ve stayed in some very cheap shitholes while spending the money I’ve saved on FUN.