Hello again! It’s been a while since I’ve posted. Been super busy at work, but I just had a neat experience that I think could help a lot of people.
Background
A few weeks ago, my wife and I were scheduled to go to New Orleans for a few days of vacation. We had recently moved and new that we would need some time to decompress in one of our favorite cities in America.
We had some issues with some things that needed to be paid for/fixed, as well as just general exhaustion that going on a trip really wouldn’t fix, so we decided to cancel our stay. We needed to cancel everything.
We had booked our flights with Southwest, so we cancelled that and have a credit to use later this year to visit my folks. We had one tour that we could cancel and get our money back, and we lost about $100 on some concert tickets.
This left the hotel to cancel.
Canceling the Hotel Reservation
Typically, you have between 24 and 48 hours before the night of check-in to cancel the hotel. I had booked this with points, so I really wasn’t too worried about it. We had about 60 hours before we were supposed to check in.
I went to the reservation and double-checked the cancellation policy. I realized that I was supposed to cancel at least 72 hours before the time of check-in to get a full refund, or I would be charged for one night stay. I knew that this would be a tricky one to figure out.
I had already had quite the experience with this hotel chain due to a deflagging property before my stay (that was an experience that is already halfway written up, but I got distracted. I’ll finish it this week), so I didn’t really know how this was going to go. I knew this would be a tricky one to figure out.
I started off by calling reservations at the hotel to plead my case. She looked at my reservation and basically said, “You gotta pay.” It was something like $225. I didn’t want to pay that, but I would if I had no other options.
I then waited a day and did something that I thought had about a 2% chance of working: I called the front desk. I explained the situation, and she said, “I’ll make a note on your reservation, call corporate and tell them you want to change your reservation” (not cancel, but change). What I hadn’t realized is that, instead of cancelling the reservation outright, I could “move” the reservation to a different date that is outside the cancellation period and could cancel without the fee!
I called up corporate, they changed my dates to some time in July. I hung up, made sure it was updated online, and was able to cancel with no fee automatically!
What I Learned
What I really learned were two things:
- If you are within the cancellation window and need to cancel, call corporate and ask to change the dates. Will it always work? Probably not. However, it’s a neat little trick to get your points back and not have to pay a cancellation fee.
- Be nice to the front desk. I have always advocated treating front line employees like royalty, particularly in the travel industry, as they often get asked outrageous requests and are yelled at when they can’t fulfill them or are yelled at for the customer making a mistake. When you’re nice to them, they’re more likely to bend the rules to help you. Furthermore, if they truly don’t care about their jobs, if you’re nice to them, and give them a suggestion of what to do, as long as it isn’t a big ask, they’ll likely do it for you.
Conclusion
There might be a time when you need to cancel a hotel reservation, but the cancellation window has passed and, by cancelling online, you’d have to pay a one night fee (which can be expensive). When this happens, call corporate and ask them to move your reservation to a different date outside the cancellation window (and cancel for free) or call the front desk and ask whoever is working to make an exception.
Above all else, be kind. By being kind, you can get people to do some great things for you that workout in your favor.
Have you ever had to cancel a reservation after the cancellation window has passed? If so, what did you d about it?
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