I really hate it when hotels charge upon booking for a refundable stay

The Flight Detective
a room with a coat and a bed and chairs

Lately I have been making hotel bookings, which has been great. To ensure I’m covered, I’ve been booking refundable stays, just in case things go pear shaped again. What really irritates me is when hotels charge upon booking for a refundable stay.

Quite frankly I prefer not to have cash tied up with a hotel at the moment. While everything will likely be fine, it’s just not what I want to do, and I have been actively avoiding booking places that do this.

A Very Sneaky Charge Upon Booking

Recently I booked a stay at the TWA Hotel at JFK as I will have an overnight connection there next year. For a change I used Booking.com as they’re an Aer Lingus eStore partner and I earn frequent flyer points on these.

The site says, “Free cancellation before” a date a week before the stay, just as it always does. Based on my previous experience, this usually means you won’t pay anything until you arrive. All well and good.

Colour me surprised when a credit card charge appeared virtually immediately for the entire amount. Checking my confirmation shows the line, “You will be charged a prepayment of the total price at any time.”

I certainly didn’t see that on the website. When I went back, it turns out it’s there twice. You have to hover over the question mark in a circle beside the notice about FREE cancellation and there it is. Who hovers over these things? I certainly don’t.

Overall Thoughts

Having the money go out upon booking for a hotel stay is really no big deal to me. I would have had to pay for it anyway. The way the prepayment term was effectively hidden from me is what I really dislike.

I will give it to them though, free cancellation is correct, it’s just showing half the facts. I’ll be curious to see how quickly a refund comes through if it happens to come to that. Let’s hope it doesn’t though, as I want to go on my trip!

What do you think of hotels taking a charge upon booking for a stay that is refundable almost up until check-in? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.

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Images via Booking.com.

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Barry Moss

If that happened to me, I would immediately cancel the reservation based on deceptive practices and make a new reservation elsewhere.

Mark

I had this happen to me recently with a Sheraton stay. As a Titanium, I’ve booked many stays on Marriott’s website in the past, but somehow they had the language that i was going to be charged right away hidden just enough that I didn’t see it. I had a number of places that i was considering and given how far out the stay was, I definitely would have avoided that one if I knew I was going to have the cash tied up.

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