Last week, I needed to cancel a stay at a Preferred Hotel I had booked with Choice points. Somewhere along the way, I noticed that the hotel had a 24-hour cancellation policy, so I set a reminder to cancel before then if I needed to. Approximately 30 hours prior, I initiated the cancellation (here) and was dismayed to see that the reservation actually had a 72-hour cancellation policy!
72-hour cancellation policy
I was sure I had seen a 1-day cancellation policy somewhere, so I investigated a bit… When booking with Choice points, the website no longer shows the cancellation policy. So, instead, I pretended to book the hotel with cash through the Preferred Hotels website. On the page for selecting a room, I clicked “Rate Details” and sure enough, the site indicated a 72-hour cancellation policy (yikes!):
Cancelling anyway
I was well past the 72-hour deadline. My usual trick in these situations is to change the reservation to a later date before cancelling. Unfortunately, the email confirmation from Preferred Hotels was explicit that the reservation was cancellable but not changeable. So, I returned to the cancellation screen, held my breath, and clicked the final “cancel reservation” button…
Nothing seemed to happen. I was returned to the reservation look-up screen. Then I checked my email and, sure enough, I had received confirmation of the cancellation. The email stated: “Your Choice Privileges® points will be returned to your Choice Privileges account within the next 72 hours, provided the cancellation was made within the hotel’s stated cancellation policy.”
That didn’t sound good.
I logged into my Choice account, and, amazingly, my points had already been returned!
Searching for the 1-day policy
The fact that I got my points back was great news, but I was still confused about where I got the idea that the hotel had a 1-day cancellation policy. So, I checked my original confirmation emails…
When I initially booked the hotel, I had received two emails from Preferred Hotels. Neither listed the cancellation policy. I also received an email directly from the hotel. This is where I had seen the 1-day policy!
Cancellation Policy: Any changes or cancellations must be done by 3 PM of the date prior to arrival to avoid a charge of one night’s room rate plus tax
It’s bizarre that the Preferred Hotels website lists a 72-hour policy, but the hotel itself has a 24-hour policy. Fortunately, they appear to have honored the hotel’s policy!
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When I make reservations on line, I save, screenshot, copy, etc. the page electronically. I always find the cancelation policy and save that and note the date. This way, I have the information IN CASE I would need to dispute if the refund did not happen.
That’s a great practice. The problem here is that when you book Preferred Hotels through Choice, there doesn’t seem to be any place online that shows the cancelation policy.
I had a reservation at a Preferred Hotel in Ireland that I booked with Choice points and I received an email informing me that I needed to make a payment. The hotel said it was a mistake and to disregard. I had another stay in Munich, it was good but about a month later I got an email that said I needed to pay and the stay already happened. Again they said nevermind.
Had a situation booking Preferred Hotel thru Choice, where it was clearly stated that my stay came with complimentary breakfast for two. Calling the hotel to confirm a few months before my stay, I was told that wasn’t the case.I was told by a Choice rep. that they had no link to my reservation other than seeing I had made a reservation. After two months of going back and forth between the two I cancelled my reservation. Took over 3 weeks to get my points back. There is a clear disconnect between the two.
I’ve noticed a pattern where Greg and Nick (and perhaps others) seem to be canceling flights and hotels all the time. Is there some underlying strategy going on that would be interesting to hear about, or do people change their minds an unusual amount? Any light you could shed on the matter would be truly appreciated. I can understand canceling a placeholder flight (or hotel) for a better one, but it seems like the whole trip is cancelled in some cases.
If you are booking with points, you can make more speculative reservations.
Speculative bookings seem rather dangerous. In the best case, you have points stranded with a particular transfer partner. In the worst case, you lose at least 25% and possibly 100% of your points (Etihad) for cancellation, or have them stranded with an ominous clock ticking (1 year with JAL, perhaps there are worse ones). I would absolutely consider using a program like AS or AA for booking placeholder flights if I’m hoping to find a business class flight later on, since I get basically 100% of my points back and no long term harm. When I book a trip, I’m pretty much going to go (unless there’s so sort of emergency), since I have a fixed time chosen that needs coordination with others. Perhaps the Frequent Miler team has so many trips in the works that cancellation is a common occurrence? I’m just curious about the kind of circumstances that result in such frequent changes of plans.
JAL is roughly 3 years.
Obviously you should only make speculative bookings with points you know you will be able to use before expiry.
Award travel frequently requires flexibility around availability, it’s not particularly surprising to me that the contributors to a website about award travel are frequently booking and cancelling things… Suppose you’re visiting Japan and have hotels booked in Osaka for around when you leave but suddenly business availability appears out of Aomori. You might need to shift your trip around to end in Aomori instead.
Yes, we definitely cancel flights and hotels regularly. The reason is that if we see a great award that might meet our needs, we’ll usually go ahead and book it. With flights, we’ll often also book freely cancelable backup flights if we’re concerned about making a tight connection. Or we might book “good enough” flights while we wait for our ideal flights to become available to book with points at a good value.
When doing the above, we make sure:
We avoid transferring to programs like JAL, Singapore, ANA, Turkish, etc. where there’s no way to keep points alive more than 3 years. And, unless our plans are dead certain, we avoid booking with programs like Etihad or Iberia (for partner awards) where we won’t be able to get our points back if we need to cancel
All you needed to do is just to hold the reservation with a debit card with only 1 dollar on it. Thank me later.
This is a very interesting idea. Are we talking about a Visa or Mastercard gift debt card or opening up a dedicated account with $1 in it?
Is it possible that cancellation terms changed in between the time the reservation was made and the time of the cancellation?
It’s possible, but it’s more likely that the hotel itself has a different policy than what Preferred Hotels is aware of
Until we know the two have truly ironed out the IT issues, I’m reluctant to book Preferred via Choice.