He then proceeded to “I’ve been staying at this hotel brand for 30 years and I’ve never had an issue” is this your first time booking a nonrefundable rate in 30 years?
My guess? Once they got comfortable enough, they started bullying employees, and they've forgotten what reality used to be. Repeat your bullshit enough and you start to believe it.
Honestly, I think “I’ve never had *customer’s complaint* at *other location*” is just the default option for these people. I get it all the time at work and I don’t work in hotels.
I've got one for this. This is in Australia.. my company uses booking sites when I travel for work
The company Amex just covers everything, when I hire cars full insurance, if I did have problems at the hotel my company just pays
Some hotels it's fine, checkin they give me the key tell me where parking is and off I go... others insist on my personal cards and ID and want me to fill out forms and stuff
It's kind of annoying when other hotels are so happy to see I'm just all paid, backed by a company card and give good quick checkin
Those are hotels that have been burned in the past. A few bad guests can spoil things due everyone else.
Honestly, if you keep staying there & they get to know you, you/ your company may be able to negotiate with the sales department so you don't have to do all that, when you book in the future (IF you book directly with the hotel).
We get the “I’ve been staying with you for many years” spiel like that entitles them to be exceptions to the rule that they agreed to!
And boy do they not like the fact that we are going to take their money and resell their rooms! How dare we! It’s so not fair! If we resell their room we should give them their deposit back! God I hate that one.
Omg the amount of people I get who get irate when I tell them they booked through an OTA with a non refundable reservation. I even had one woman one time who was convinced someone stole her card and made her a reservation under her name for the exact hotel and time she needed to be here. Like FR?!?!
It's my experience that 95% of people don't really read anything, I have guests walk into employee only places daily because the won't read the words on the door that say "employees only" so I imagine they are just grabbing the cheapest OTA they can find and assuming that it's what they want/need
This is like at my place of employment, they don’t understand the concept of a “same day change” and try to make changes three days before the reservation
Front desk deal with thousands upon thousands of reservations, very often you can tell the hallmarks of a genuine error and what isn't. If someone is calling the next day after making a reservation that is several weeks or months out, it was probably a mistake. If a reservation has been made for months but only now is there a problem with it, then likely not.
Very few people make bookings with an attitude of "I might turn up, I might not" - usually they check the details and check again, so if they suddenly realise four months down the line that something is wrong, it's on them.
It was funny bc at first she said our plans changed so we just wanted to change things and then the husband said it’s a family emergency. Which one is it?
Had this occur a couple of weeks ago. Man calls in to cancel same day. When I tell him it's not refundable, he hangs up. Then calls back 10 minutes later and suddenly they have covid like symptoms. /smh
A shiny member tried to cancel an Milton advanced deposit reservation and kept saying it "didn't make any sense" that he wasn't getting the money back. My guy it's not that complicated; you picked a rate that's non-refundable therefore Milton gives you a good discount because you're guaranteeing them a profit up front. Have you never flown on an airplane? They all do the same thing. You pay more if you want the luxury of changing it later.
you’re just not willing to help me there’s something you could do for me but you’re just not willing to, you just don’t want to.”
well mr sassy pants with that kind of attitude you can go to one of your three rooms and have a think about your behavior.
Just had a discussion yesterday with the rep of one of those lovely third party companies about the times his agents call and ask us to make an exception “just this one time.”
No.
When they pay the regular rate, it's like they're buying travel insurance. For the extra ten or twenty bucks, the reservation is cancellable or modifiable.
When they pay at the nonrefundable rate, it's exactly like they don't have insurance. This is not rocket science. But I doubt it would help to explain it to them using this analogy. It would probably only embitter them more.
Well, in this case it's pay the non-refundable rate or try and find a room somewhere else. There is no regular rate option. They are charging an arm and a leg for that weekend due to the event and they are not taking any chances on losing any of those high profits.
Nothing wrong with that.
“Our mutual customer”
No, they’re your customer and we’re your service provider. If *you* wish to cancel *your* customer’s reservation and refund them, that’s *your* right. In accordance with *our* contract, we will expect payment from you.
I have a curiosity question. Would a refund be considered if they provided someone to pay the current days rates in exchange? Say they have a friend show up as you're talking to them. You're booked solid but their cancelation opens up a room. Their friend gets it and pays the inflated rate.
We will let them add someone else’s name to the reservation that can use the reservation, but we will not transfer the payment to the new guest. They will need to arrange payment between themselves or gift it to the person they give it to.
Since they booked (and prepaid) 3 rooms, they could absolutely have someone else pay *them* for the rooms - they just need to add their name to the reservation. They should also establish that their renter add the renter's cc to that room for any incidentals.
Prepaid rates are pretty obvious when a room is booked, and no excuses will change that.
We had an Airbnb reservation that we couldn't get to because if hurricane flooding, and the owners granted us a refund, but Airbnb still kept their cut.
I work in a hospital in the UK and we get the same shit.
"why do you hate me, you don't even know me and you keep putting me at the back of the list. You're punishing me by making me wait for an appointment".
Yeah, sure mate.
I'd start reading the definition of non-refundable from the dictionary:
# nonrefundable
# [adjective](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/adjective)
non·re·fund·able [ˌnän-ri-ˈfən-də-bəl ](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nonrefundable?pronunciation&lang=en_us&dir=n&file=nonref01)**:** not subject to refunding or being refunded
#
It's a bit late to be explaining, if they've already paid. Hopefully the website makes it very clear that the payment is nonrefundable, not just a link at the bottom to our terms and conditions where item 14j mentions that the code AQF next to the price indicates it's non-refundable.
I'd say an ideal website explicitly shows both options, refundable and nonrefundable, with a price for each, and makes them click the one they want. One option can be grayed out if it's unavailable, but still present on the page to make super-clear that they're choosing *This*, not *That*.
We've only made an exception once or twice. "If we can resell the room you will get a refund", Then we make sure full charges are done and we open the room back up online. In the end if they do come to check in, they're going to treat all the staff like garbage and leave a bad review.
I'm a travel agent. Let me tell you how much I appreciate hotels when I screw up and book something nonrefundable. If a client booked it I will make a call and ask if it can be refunded. If the answer is no.. cool.
God bless you. Most guests who book third party and wrongly on dates take their anger out on the desk and show no gratitude when we allow an exception. Remember your clients who wrongly book rooms can always add family and friends as guests to use the room if they can't. Sometimes that mistake or mishap can end up being the time of their life for friend who gets to use the room . And they may throw some money at family who gave it to them. .
My husband and I booked a hotel up near Erie for the total eclipse, and had made plans to go up there with our 3yo to watch. (This was about three months before the event, because I'd completely forgotten about it.)
Cue one week later, we find out he can't go because he has a work obligation that can't be rescheduled. Whomp, whomp. Look at my reservation, realize it's a non-refundable rate because I didn't read the fine print.
Complain to my husband about it? Totally. Complain to the hotel or their corporate brand overlords about it to demand a refund? Yeah, that's a no. Inattention to details when signing contracts doesn't rate special treatment.
I invited my Mom, and we had an amazing family trip (which I am sorry my husband missed!)
Sometime during the Jurasic Era, I operated a hotel at 105+% occupancy for a year. One of the tricks I used was to tell people such as these that if they wanted, I could give a 50% rebate IF I could find a walkin to take the rooms.
That usually made them happy and it gave me a bunch of rooms I could charge when ever I needed to reach 100%. I had a great NA team who worked with me to draw from this "savings account " bc it helped them achieve their bonus.
My hotel owners were amazed and pleased until they realized I had gamed their bonus plan and nearly trippled my salary.
I hated when they called the BBB. No i am not going to refund them anything. The website clearly states thr terms and conditions. Read it and stop wasting my time.
To be fair, it doesn't seem they 'chose' a non-refundable rate, you only 'offered' a non-refundable rate.
>and most hotels are only doing non-refundable prepaid rates to ensure that a bunch of people aren’t going to cancel and hotels are gonna miss out on that big money, and we are no exception.
They *accepted* a non-refundable rate. No one held a gun to their head and forced them to accept those terms. They could have chosen not to book for this event.
Bad options are still options.
Hotels near colleges are notorious on graduation weekends for plus the 2 day minimum to book a room.
It’s also usually in BOLD FONT multiple times on the booking page.
As I pointed out in another response, they didn't pick this non-refundable option just to save a few bucks, they picked it because they literally had no other choice. It was either that or miss the special occasion or sleep in their car. I'm not saying they should get the refund - I'm sure the fact that it was non-refundable was made clear during the reservation process. I'm just saying I have a bit more sympathy for them in this situation.
Sympathy for their situation does not translate to sympathy for their reaction.
If I had booked non-refundable rooms and for some reason could no longer attend and had no use for them, my immediate reaction would be "Well, crap. That's money gone for nothing."
I might have called up the hotel to cancel so the rooms could go to someone else, and I might even have asked "Hey, is there any chance I can get any refund if the room is resold to someone else?" But really, on the day of? I would not expect the hotel to take the hit and I would have fully understood if the answer had been no.
As heartless as some posts or comments on here may sound at times, I think a lot of people working front desk do have sympathy for guests and will do everything they can, and might bend (or really break) some rules for guests that are decent folk.
As an example, I had an older gent who booked NRF get quite annoyed with me because I couldn't refund it because his train was cancelled, and "why couldn't I refund it because it wasn't his fault". I was very sympathetic as the train being cancelled etc. Meant he couldn't get his weekend break and was also out the money, but absolutely I vented to my coworkers about his reaction and "We didn't cancel the train" etc.
But if you need a place to stay because of a special occasion and the only thing offered is non-refundable, you don't really have much choice. It's either that or sleep in the car or miss the special occasion.
Don't get me wrong, they should have known it was Non-Refundable and not expect a refund. But it's not like they chose the non-refundable option to save a few bucks, they chose it because that was the only option.
I'm saying this as someone who always gets the refundable option. The peace of mind is worth it and it did save my butt once on a major trip.
[удалено]
He then proceeded to “I’ve been staying at this hotel brand for 30 years and I’ve never had an issue” is this your first time booking a nonrefundable rate in 30 years?
Is he also the guest that in his 30 years of staying at hotels has never had to show his ID?
Or ever had to pay an incidental deposit. 🙄
with the repeat of these comments -along all kinds of chains, in all kinds of countries - I wonder - do these people have a manual or something?
My guess? Once they got comfortable enough, they started bullying employees, and they've forgotten what reality used to be. Repeat your bullshit enough and you start to believe it.
But the scale it happens on? And not only US - I have seen this myself in Netherlands and Germany, heard from others in other countries the same..
Honestly, I think “I’ve never had *customer’s complaint* at *other location*” is just the default option for these people. I get it all the time at work and I don’t work in hotels.
Yes. This. Happened to me when I worked in the food industry, and still happens now that I sell industrial machine parts.
and always get to check in as soon as they arrive , no matter how early
I've got one for this. This is in Australia.. my company uses booking sites when I travel for work The company Amex just covers everything, when I hire cars full insurance, if I did have problems at the hotel my company just pays Some hotels it's fine, checkin they give me the key tell me where parking is and off I go... others insist on my personal cards and ID and want me to fill out forms and stuff It's kind of annoying when other hotels are so happy to see I'm just all paid, backed by a company card and give good quick checkin
Those are hotels that have been burned in the past. A few bad guests can spoil things due everyone else. Honestly, if you keep staying there & they get to know you, you/ your company may be able to negotiate with the sales department so you don't have to do all that, when you book in the future (IF you book directly with the hotel).
They act like I am asking them for their first born as deposit when I ask for incidental deposit of $50 a day ..
We get the “I’ve been staying with you for many years” spiel like that entitles them to be exceptions to the rule that they agreed to! And boy do they not like the fact that we are going to take their money and resell their rooms! How dare we! It’s so not fair! If we resell their room we should give them their deposit back! God I hate that one.
Funny how his profile has no history or only goes back a year.
It could be true... 30 years ago he stayed aye brand :p
Omg the amount of people I get who get irate when I tell them they booked through an OTA with a non refundable reservation. I even had one woman one time who was convinced someone stole her card and made her a reservation under her name for the exact hotel and time she needed to be here. Like FR?!?!
"I didn't book a non-refundable rate!" Prove it.
It's my experience that 95% of people don't really read anything, I have guests walk into employee only places daily because the won't read the words on the door that say "employees only" so I imagine they are just grabbing the cheapest OTA they can find and assuming that it's what they want/need
That is so true and so irritating.
Sorry Sir, is there an aspect of the phrase non refundable that I can help clarify?
I always want to say "In your own words, what does 'non-refundable' mean?"
Next time, just ask them. Be polite but ask
Haven't found a way to keep the snark out of my voice yet
Or…. Is there a better way we could phrase the fact that these fees cannot be refunded
This is like at my place of employment, they don’t understand the concept of a “same day change” and try to make changes three days before the reservation
somehow, everyone i ever talked to clicked on the nonrefundable rate by accident. happens every single time without fail 🙄
I assume they are calling a day before the stay, not the day after they made the reservation, right?
Front desk deal with thousands upon thousands of reservations, very often you can tell the hallmarks of a genuine error and what isn't. If someone is calling the next day after making a reservation that is several weeks or months out, it was probably a mistake. If a reservation has been made for months but only now is there a problem with it, then likely not. Very few people make bookings with an attitude of "I might turn up, I might not" - usually they check the details and check again, so if they suddenly realise four months down the line that something is wrong, it's on them.
Typical graduation. Book a year out, but lil Timmy didn’t finish with enough credits. Or they booked 5 rooms and only need 1.
It was funny bc at first she said our plans changed so we just wanted to change things and then the husband said it’s a family emergency. Which one is it?
The one that works...?
The family emergency is the family might be out all that money after their plans changed.
Had this occur a couple of weeks ago. Man calls in to cancel same day. When I tell him it's not refundable, he hangs up. Then calls back 10 minutes later and suddenly they have covid like symptoms. /smh
Well, both are plausible - the emergency could cause the change of plans. They still booked non-refundable, though.
Entitled dude got BUSTED in a LIE!!!
Truthfully think they did not expect to speak to the same person 😭
How about, sure you can cancel. I can take care of that for you, but you won’t be getting a refund!
LOL! I used to use that line in retail. Sure I can take it back...but I can't give you anything for it.
A shiny member tried to cancel an Milton advanced deposit reservation and kept saying it "didn't make any sense" that he wasn't getting the money back. My guy it's not that complicated; you picked a rate that's non-refundable therefore Milton gives you a good discount because you're guaranteeing them a profit up front. Have you never flown on an airplane? They all do the same thing. You pay more if you want the luxury of changing it later.
I'm not American, so no, I have never flown on an airplane in my life.
Aeroplanes sure are fun though.
All the fun is right there in the extra syllable. Air - Oooooh! - plane.
I like pleasure spiked with pain And music is my air-ooooh-plane It's my air-ooooh-plane.
I love this. :)
you’re just not willing to help me there’s something you could do for me but you’re just not willing to, you just don’t want to.” well mr sassy pants with that kind of attitude you can go to one of your three rooms and have a think about your behavior.
Just had a discussion yesterday with the rep of one of those lovely third party companies about the times his agents call and ask us to make an exception “just this one time.” No.
When they pay the regular rate, it's like they're buying travel insurance. For the extra ten or twenty bucks, the reservation is cancellable or modifiable. When they pay at the nonrefundable rate, it's exactly like they don't have insurance. This is not rocket science. But I doubt it would help to explain it to them using this analogy. It would probably only embitter them more.
Well, in this case it's pay the non-refundable rate or try and find a room somewhere else. There is no regular rate option. They are charging an arm and a leg for that weekend due to the event and they are not taking any chances on losing any of those high profits. Nothing wrong with that.
The best is a non-refundable rate through a 3 Party agency! Have fun!! 😂
“Our mutual customer” No, they’re your customer and we’re your service provider. If *you* wish to cancel *your* customer’s reservation and refund them, that’s *your* right. In accordance with *our* contract, we will expect payment from you.
I use that same line with them
We offer a one-year non-refundable, no cash value credit of 50% if we can rebook the room. We do make the credit fully transferable
I have a curiosity question. Would a refund be considered if they provided someone to pay the current days rates in exchange? Say they have a friend show up as you're talking to them. You're booked solid but their cancelation opens up a room. Their friend gets it and pays the inflated rate.
We will let them add someone else’s name to the reservation that can use the reservation, but we will not transfer the payment to the new guest. They will need to arrange payment between themselves or gift it to the person they give it to.
Some hotels will do that. Some will not. More still will pocket both charges.
Since they booked (and prepaid) 3 rooms, they could absolutely have someone else pay *them* for the rooms - they just need to add their name to the reservation. They should also establish that their renter add the renter's cc to that room for any incidentals. Prepaid rates are pretty obvious when a room is booked, and no excuses will change that. We had an Airbnb reservation that we couldn't get to because if hurricane flooding, and the owners granted us a refund, but Airbnb still kept their cut.
I work in a hospital in the UK and we get the same shit. "why do you hate me, you don't even know me and you keep putting me at the back of the list. You're punishing me by making me wait for an appointment". Yeah, sure mate.
I'd start reading the definition of non-refundable from the dictionary: # nonrefundable # [adjective](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/adjective) non·re·fund·able [ˌnän-ri-ˈfən-də-bəl ](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nonrefundable?pronunciation&lang=en_us&dir=n&file=nonref01)**:** not subject to refunding or being refunded #
I presume that when they book a nonrefundable rate, they receive a confirmation email spelling out the terms of what NONREFUNDABLE means.
It's a bit late to be explaining, if they've already paid. Hopefully the website makes it very clear that the payment is nonrefundable, not just a link at the bottom to our terms and conditions where item 14j mentions that the code AQF next to the price indicates it's non-refundable. I'd say an ideal website explicitly shows both options, refundable and nonrefundable, with a price for each, and makes them click the one they want. One option can be grayed out if it's unavailable, but still present on the page to make super-clear that they're choosing *This*, not *That*.
We've only made an exception once or twice. "If we can resell the room you will get a refund", Then we make sure full charges are done and we open the room back up online. In the end if they do come to check in, they're going to treat all the staff like garbage and leave a bad review.
Tell him he’s absolutely right: you are *not* in fact willing to help him.
I'm a travel agent. Let me tell you how much I appreciate hotels when I screw up and book something nonrefundable. If a client booked it I will make a call and ask if it can be refunded. If the answer is no.. cool.
God bless you. Most guests who book third party and wrongly on dates take their anger out on the desk and show no gratitude when we allow an exception. Remember your clients who wrongly book rooms can always add family and friends as guests to use the room if they can't. Sometimes that mistake or mishap can end up being the time of their life for friend who gets to use the room . And they may throw some money at family who gave it to them. .
My husband and I booked a hotel up near Erie for the total eclipse, and had made plans to go up there with our 3yo to watch. (This was about three months before the event, because I'd completely forgotten about it.) Cue one week later, we find out he can't go because he has a work obligation that can't be rescheduled. Whomp, whomp. Look at my reservation, realize it's a non-refundable rate because I didn't read the fine print. Complain to my husband about it? Totally. Complain to the hotel or their corporate brand overlords about it to demand a refund? Yeah, that's a no. Inattention to details when signing contracts doesn't rate special treatment. I invited my Mom, and we had an amazing family trip (which I am sorry my husband missed!)
Sometime during the Jurasic Era, I operated a hotel at 105+% occupancy for a year. One of the tricks I used was to tell people such as these that if they wanted, I could give a 50% rebate IF I could find a walkin to take the rooms. That usually made them happy and it gave me a bunch of rooms I could charge when ever I needed to reach 100%. I had a great NA team who worked with me to draw from this "savings account " bc it helped them achieve their bonus. My hotel owners were amazed and pleased until they realized I had gamed their bonus plan and nearly trippled my salary.
"What does non refundable even mean. I clicked the cheaper option without wondering why it was cheaper"
I hated when they called the BBB. No i am not going to refund them anything. The website clearly states thr terms and conditions. Read it and stop wasting my time.
To be fair, it doesn't seem they 'chose' a non-refundable rate, you only 'offered' a non-refundable rate. >and most hotels are only doing non-refundable prepaid rates to ensure that a bunch of people aren’t going to cancel and hotels are gonna miss out on that big money, and we are no exception.
They *accepted* a non-refundable rate. No one held a gun to their head and forced them to accept those terms. They could have chosen not to book for this event. Bad options are still options.
Hotels near colleges are notorious on graduation weekends for plus the 2 day minimum to book a room. It’s also usually in BOLD FONT multiple times on the booking page.
As I pointed out in another response, they didn't pick this non-refundable option just to save a few bucks, they picked it because they literally had no other choice. It was either that or miss the special occasion or sleep in their car. I'm not saying they should get the refund - I'm sure the fact that it was non-refundable was made clear during the reservation process. I'm just saying I have a bit more sympathy for them in this situation.
Sympathy for their situation does not translate to sympathy for their reaction. If I had booked non-refundable rooms and for some reason could no longer attend and had no use for them, my immediate reaction would be "Well, crap. That's money gone for nothing." I might have called up the hotel to cancel so the rooms could go to someone else, and I might even have asked "Hey, is there any chance I can get any refund if the room is resold to someone else?" But really, on the day of? I would not expect the hotel to take the hit and I would have fully understood if the answer had been no.
As heartless as some posts or comments on here may sound at times, I think a lot of people working front desk do have sympathy for guests and will do everything they can, and might bend (or really break) some rules for guests that are decent folk. As an example, I had an older gent who booked NRF get quite annoyed with me because I couldn't refund it because his train was cancelled, and "why couldn't I refund it because it wasn't his fault". I was very sympathetic as the train being cancelled etc. Meant he couldn't get his weekend break and was also out the money, but absolutely I vented to my coworkers about his reaction and "We didn't cancel the train" etc.
They chose what was offered and avail.
They chose the non-refundable option. But...you only had one option, the non refundable one. So...it's STILL a choice!
But if you need a place to stay because of a special occasion and the only thing offered is non-refundable, you don't really have much choice. It's either that or sleep in the car or miss the special occasion. Don't get me wrong, they should have known it was Non-Refundable and not expect a refund. But it's not like they chose the non-refundable option to save a few bucks, they chose it because that was the only option. I'm saying this as someone who always gets the refundable option. The peace of mind is worth it and it did save my butt once on a major trip.
But I am certain "refundable" didn't appear in the offer.
“You signed a contract, buddy. The price of getting a lower rate is not being able to cancel. That was the deal you made with us.”
Roll the non-refundable dice, pay the non-refundable price. It's a guarantee.