Glad you all seem to be meeting with positive results. I had a further thought last night that there's always credit card chargeback if I encounter any problem getting my Wetherspoons booking refunded. Luckily we paid with my husband's MasterCard.
That was going to be my first question to you. Ultimately, consumer law and fair contract provisions apply, and
if the provider can't deliver a service, then they must refund you. If you are unable to get them to do so, contact your card provider and put the charge into 'dispute'.
More generally, other travellers will definitely meet with various responses to cancelling hotel bookings.
At the moment, various processes from hotels and online travel agents include:
- Pro-actively contacting guests and offering them a free of charge cancellation, even if the hotel currently remains open - Expedia Group companies being at the forefront of this, so that's Expedia, Orbitz, Hotels.com and ebookers.
- Pro-actively contacting guests and offering a free of charge amendment, again even if the hotel is open, to any bookable date in the future.
- Pro-actively contacting guests and offering a credit towards a future stay.
In the case of (1) above, the refund may take up to 30 days given the volumes being handled. In the case of all (1), (2) and (3), where this applies to originally non-flexible bookings and the hotel remains open, then this is above and beyond the requirements of the law and any relevant specific terms and conditions.
Where it gets fiddlier is looking at what some hotel companies, for example Travelodge and Premier Inn, were doing last week; on the one hand saying that they'd permit flexibility, but on the other providing no practical process to do so and insisting that amendments could only be handled through contact centres. This is, obliquely, what Avanti et al were up to latterly as well, and easyJet still is in some circumstances.
To Premier Inn and Travelodge's credit, they have in the meantime been able to (presumably) contract some additional outsourced developer hours and get their websites updated to permit online servicing of bookings that should not normally have an amend button visible. The perils of not having in-house resource.....? They've also been pro-actively refunding pre-payments for meals for stays which take place after their restaurants have been closed.
Hopefully, easyJet will pull its finger out and do likewise; at the moment passengers whose flights are cancelled because the route as a whole has been pulled, can't even press a button to get their money back. They have to call.
Back to hotels, and where properties are in fact closing or now closed, there seem to be a variety of processes in place:
- Contacting guests individually, advising them of the circumstances, and making offers for alternative options, including refunds where pre-payments have been made.
- Contacting guests on a blanket basis, advising them that bookings are summarily cancelled and to expect a refund in due course.
- Contacting guests on a blanket basis, advising them that bookings are summarily cancelled and to contact them when the closure is over to rebook for a future date.
- Responding to guests who enquire themselves with the same message as (1), (2) or (3) above.
- Not communicating at all.
In such situations, if any kind of prepayment has been made for a stay within the closure period (or any period if no reopening date has been set) then the only correct positions for a hotel to take are (1), (2) or the appropriate version of (4).
(3) and (5) would be grounds for legal redress and/or card payment dispute.
The situation is dynamic, though, and hotels that are trying (3) and (5) currently may well find themselves reviewing their positions quite quickly.
Lawyers are still working.
All businesses will, understandably, be trying to preserve cash at the moment, and therefore it's likewise understandable that some may not want to overplay the offer of a refund. British Airways is up to this in quite a sneaky way, removing the apparent ability to refund and pushing passengers towards credit notes.
More subjectively, then, my feeling is that if you're dealing with a smaller, independent hotel (or holiday home owner etc), with which you have perhaps a longer term relationship, and you do intend to rebook, and you think that they're doing their best then, if you can afford it and especially if you have paid by card, let them keep the money and either rebook now, or take it as a credit for future use. It may be the difference between them surviving or not, and if you have paid by card then you'll still have full protection if they don't.
My feeling, also, is that we should
remember how businesses have handled this, and favour those who are open, honest and helpful. I will be honest myself that I believe that we should not forget just how shabbily some businesses are behaving during this, and that they do not deserve our custom in future. Hopefully, their employees will then be taken on by professional, sustainable businesses that survive.
Final point to reinforce: if your booking is not imminent, and you haven't yet been offered what you consider to be an appropriate option,
don't rush into accepting a sub-optimal one. This applies to flights, too. Some folks have taken options of time-limited credit vouchers or new non-flex bookings at some time in the future, but in the meantime policies have since changed to permit full refunds either out of goodwill, or because the service that there was a disinclination or no need to take, has now been cancelled itself.
Hope some or all of the above helps.
. I cancelled several Travelodge bookings at the weekend, at which time it was vouchers on offer only. Presumably I'm too late to get this amended for a cash refund.
