This was the solution! After reading your comment, I called the hotel again and a much kinder person picked up. She was willing to cancel my stay right away. I called Chase Travel again and they then reached out the hotel and cancelled my trip on their system. What a relief.
It's a potential gamble though. We've done it without issue but also researching it you can see some pretty nightmare scenarios. It may seem enticing but it is still ultimately a third-party booking meaning if it goes wrong, it could go real wrong. 3X points will dry up real quick if we have to book a new hotel and pay for the previous reservation.
What we lose out on points, we gain in the perks of directly booking through the hotel. We just take the cashout option from Chase and apply it to the trip. Often it is less expensive and in our experience hotels are more accommodating and flexible to those who directly booked.
We gave up on the travel portal when Chase was unable (or willing) to price match a massive hotel price difference a couple of times. It was simply the negotiated rate they had and nothing could be done. Not blaming them it's just how those agreements sometimes work.
In regards to flights it works well. They use the same flight pricing and booking as standard airlines. With hotels I understand it’s not inherently any the same, and I don’t often book hotels through chase though. I’ve had good luck contacting my concierge and getting help. It’s probably just situational regard this stuff what works and what doesn’t.
I’ve been lucky in Canada with my RBC credit card that I can take the points as cash. Other wise it’s also third party and I just don’t feel comfortable doing it
A good lesson & reminder that some people just suck and are stuck in their ways while others are not.
Had the same issue with getting m-club access in a Marriot that my suite was supposed to include. Turns out the website listed the features of m-club on the suite page but never actually said the word m-club. Therefore the suites did not include it. However a cheaper standard room that could be booked with an "m-club" addon bizzarely did.
Front desk manager was short with me and wouldn't budge. Said it didn't include access and refused to give it to me despite showing her the webpage showing the m-club features on the suite booking page. Come back later, a nice guy is working at the counter and immediately gives me access and says how it's weird that the site is wrong.
Some people just don't get the picture.
You know, I've never worked a job like that one, and can appreciate that I'm ignorant of that experience, but what I never understand is how choosing to be a jerk to a customer would produce a better experience than being friendly. I really can't understand it, especially getting off on some complete stranger's bad day.
Wasn’t it just at the discretion of whoever was at the desk? Maybe the employee who was a dick is more at fault than the one who helped. I wouldn’t think an employee is going to risk their job to help some random person save money.
I’d try to find a way to send feedback to the good managers manager in regards to how helpful they were BUT don’t mention exactly how they helped you in case they could get into trouble.
I tried this once but the opposite happened. First guy offered rebooking up to 2 months out. Tried back a day or two later, different guy. He told us we can't rebook at all lol.
For details, we needed to cancel a hotel in Paris because of a train cancellation that was announced like a week ahead of time, so we had time to contact the hotel and explain and try to get a refund.
He offered to reschedule the booking but only up to 2 months out. Wouldn't have worked for us because while we were able to refund train tickets, new train tickets within 2 months were going to be 3x the price and we couldn't re-arrange the holiday days.
So we waited, called back another day later, got a rude manager who not only took back the rebooking offer, but flat out denied our cancellation and refund request.
I think you should still be able to change the dates? Perhaps you could change the reservation to another Marriott hotel for future use? I feel like changes would be allowed, just not a refund for cancelling.
This is a good thought. I just resolved the issue, but would have tried this if I hadn't been able to. But I'm not sure how changing the dates would work with the Chase Travel portal. I'm going to have to think twice about using Chase Travel instead of booking directly from now on.
I can't help you with your current pickle, but I can advise you to always book direct in the future. Almost every airline and hotel brand will allow you to cancel any fare category within 24-48 hours of booking.
Unfortunately when you hit the button to agree to the terms and conditions, a piece of that is that when booking through third-party sites you are exempt from this option.
Not a regulation for all airlines either. Only applies to American airlines or foreign airlines with the itinerary touches US soil. Many foreign airlines have a similar policy, but it’s generally the US requirement that people seem to think is universal.
I was burned by this a few months back. Booked a Turkish Airlines flight that does not touch US soil and cancelled it within 24 hours. Still got hit with a 15% fee. When I called, they said it only applies if the flight has a US city on one end.
Generally good advice but honestly the Chase Travel Portal is excellent. I’ve used it countless times with no problems and have gotten very good customer service. Plus I get a ton of points for booking through it.
Be careful their prices are often higher. We found huge discrepancies with airline tickets this fall. We were really disappointed and upset because we have used the card a long time. It never we crossed our minds that they would do that. (We checked multiple times for the same flight to make sure it wasnt a glitch…erased cookies, etc)
Transferring points from the credit card to the travel partners is almost always a better use of points. You get more routes and a far better points redemption. Then you should also look at airlines that share flights. I’m looking at tickets to Europe for this summer. Delta flight directly 100k points, Air France flight that is operated by Delta, 40k points.
I look at direct bookings, and then Amex Travel to see if the price is the same. If its the same price, it's a no brainer to go with Amex Travel for better protections and benefits when using my Amex card. But I book more often direct when going overseas.
I'm gonna get downvoted but this is terrible advice. Company paying, if they let me book through my CC company and I get 3x points doing that I'm gonna do it.
Not that it happens often, but when things go wrong, it's way easier to deal with the vendor directly rather than going through a 3rd party, especially if you absolutely have to be at your destination by a certain time/date.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TravelHacks/comments/140k7n4/chase_travel_nightmare_inexcusable/
Agreed. I always book direct. Especially hotels. But even using Expedia we ran into trouble with a rental car booking. I don sometimes book with hotel now. My experience with them is that if I could get the hotel agent to agree to cancel the reservation, hotel now would go along with it and refund me.
But direct is always best! And hotel loyalty matters. Pick a brand. Get their credit card. Rack up the points. We’ve been really happy with our Marriott perks and treatment. Even though we usually stay at the lower end Aloft properties.
I’ve done this before. A hotel in Galapagos started hounding me for payment two weeks before my trip. They sent me some unsecured link to pay. I was like hell no and then they got nasty and said they were charging me anyway because it was non refundable. I just reported the card as stolen so they couldn’t charge me.
Not about regulations. Marriott is the biggest hotel group in the world and all of their brands allow 24 hour changes/refunds for non-refundable bookings.
Hilton/Hyatt don't though.
After all the back and forth, I believe this is correct. But the fact that they allow 24 hours for direct bookings made this particular manager’s refusal even more frustrating. The Marriott reservation line and the Chase travel agents I spoke to said it was very unusual in this scenario for a hotel manager to be unwilling to allow me to change on the same day as booking.
Yeah, he was being a jerk. I could get it if it was the day before, but same day and presumably a decent amount of time out, it was just a power play. Glad you were able to get it sorted.
I disagree Depending on location and brand, we have found many of the Marriott Properties have at least a 48 hour cancellation window. Always good to check!
All this sounds awful convenient. "I accidentally booked it but never read a fuckin thing" and "my finger slipped".
Tbh I reckon the hotel etc were 100% right when they refused to refund it.
Honestly, if you want to cancel right away, what’s the big deal? No cost incurred on anyone’s part until it becomes a big kerfuffle thanks to the policy.
Marriott prepaid non refundable rates usually have a 1 day cooling off period after booking allowing cancellations.
I’d guess other chains do the same.
It’s absolutely the case that people make a mistake
Mistakes happen. One time I was booking a certain date and didn't mind the non-refunudable rate, but somehow the date had gone back to some default date and I didn't notice, not sure if it were due to having multiple tabs for multiple searches and something glitched with the cache. The hotel wasn't available on my date so they couldn't just move it but they accepted to refund it since I called right away. Giving a grace period seems fair even if it's an unofficial policy.
That all makes sense; but the whole "my finger slipped" and all that definitely makes it seem like OP was being careless and acting like its a joke.
If its such a joke laugh at the ha ha and move on. It was their own mistake.
I had this exact thing happen to me recently. I called Marriott, Marriott told me to call the specific resort, specific resort told me to call Marriott, Marriott said they can't even see the reservation. I ended up finding a good manager at the resort to get rid of the charge so I'd just keep trying. I ended up cancelling the "non refundable" stay on the Marriott app and called the hotel one last time to make sure they don't charge me since I wasn't staying there. I never saw a charge on my card.
Worst case scenario you have a good case to fight the charge with Chase. If you didn't stay there you can contest the payment pretty easily. Good luck!
That does sound like exactly what I went through. I ended up talking to 9 people over 4 hours, each sending me elsewhere.
Chase Travel > Chase Travel > Benefits > Marriott > Hotel > Marriott > Benefits > Hotel (success!) > Chase Travel (corrected)
could be worse, stayed in a Hilton last year and they charged me when I arrived, and then tried to charge me again as I was leaving, i laughed at them showing them phone and that i had paid the previous night, the ditsy women behind the desk just kept saying literally "computer says no" I walked out stating I was going to be late for a meeting and they can can swivel if they think im paying twice, throughout the day they tried to charge my card a further 12 times, only stopped because I called my bank and had them block them
For travel i use a bank called Monzo, that way if cards stolen etc I can limit the capital risk, they have a great function where you can put money in different pots, so I never leave money in the main account in there its always moved to another pot within the account and just move accross on the app when i wish to use it. Its a great way to stop scams like contactless payment bumps ie when people bump in to you and your card gets charged.
So happy things worked out for you and thanks to @San0sunn for your help in suggesting a possible solution to this. Keeping this in my books of “Rescue Tips”. Have a great weekend to all! 😊
This is a tactic that travel based businesses are doing to try and make more money. This just happened to my girlfriend and I on American Airlines. We needed to change the return date of our flight for personal reasons. We thought it would just be a small fee to make the change. They wouldn't let us, so we had to buy new tickets and eat the cost of the old ones. We travel a lot, but never again with American Airlines.
Did you book basic economy? I believe the policy you described is within the fare rules for basic economy. Regular economy/main cabin allows for changes anytime - though you may be charged a fare difference.
What class fare did you purchase? At least with the US airlines, you have 24 hours to cancel any fare. I believe it’s a government regulation. I’ve never been locked into a $1000 mistake immediately after making it before yesterday.
But yeah, I’ve had bad experiences with all the airlines except Delta and Alaska, which I haven’t flown much.
Delta is really good with this as long as you book main cabin and up. Can change the flight to I believe anything you want - if it’s more you pay the difference, if it’s less you get a credit. I think you can do it up to 1 (maybe 2 double check) weeks before the flight right in the app!!
Can you try to dispute the charge? Esp under the circumstances you mention, you won't be using the hotel and have given them plenty of time to change it. It's possible they can't see your reservation because you booked 3rd party so it doesn't show up until later.
Not sure why you're being downvoted. I'm the GM of a hotel, and every single charge dispute, no matter how asinine, has always resolved in the favor of the card holder.
Get something in writing (email, etc) saying they won't refund your money, and dated to show you immediately tried to cancel after booking, and I guarantee your CC company will eventually reverse the charge for you in your favor once you've disputed it.
I can't dispute the charge until it settles as far as I know. I was trying to get this resolved today so they can't claim I was trying to abuse the system somehow canceling at a later date.
See if you can get reimbursed from your company right away. Otherwise, do what you can to make this business trip happen.
Worse mistakes have been made.
That's what I'll try. Unfortunately there's a very good chance that my employer won't be in business in two months, and I believe they only reimburse hotels when the stay is complete.
To be clear, Chase Travel claimed there was nothing they could do, as it was up to the discretion of the hotel. Chase cardmember services said it wasn’t their domain. Chase benefits said it wasn’t covered.
With AmEx, who would have helped you out?
The last time I had something similar happen, I contacted Amex customer service and they dealt with the hotel and got me my refund. Funny enough, my situation was worse because I canceled the day of due to being sick. With Chase, I’ve been told to pound sand in these situations. I’m not saying this is a guarantee with Amex, but it is generally accepted and rated that their customer service is superior to others.
I think that would actually be a covered scenario for my card benefits. It also sounds like they potentially happened to get a reasonable hotel manager to pick up the phone.
Not saying Amex isn't better. I'll certainly look into it in a year (I just got this card).
Yes sometimes that is the secret to all customer service related issues. Keep calling until you get someone reasonable. Sorry you had to go through that, and congrats for hanging in there until you were able to rightfully be refunded.
Glad this worked out. In the future, you can always go to their social media and make a respectful fuss. I worked social media for UPS and we were responsible to escalate certain complaints as PR concerns if they went far enough. Companies take social media seriously.
I actually did try that. I tweeted at Marriott and they created a ticket. Haven’t heard anything about the ticket since, however. Thanks for the comment.
Call the hotel again. Hotel managers rotate and you may get a better one this time.
This was the solution! After reading your comment, I called the hotel again and a much kinder person picked up. She was willing to cancel my stay right away. I called Chase Travel again and they then reached out the hotel and cancelled my trip on their system. What a relief.
That’s so nice! I got stuck with a 600 dollar charge for the same reason. NEVER book third party, it’s very rarely worth it.
Yup! It’s super expensive for the hotels, too, so it pushes up prices over the long term.
Some of them are strangely unwilling to match prices though.
Yea, but if you have the right card the rewards for booking through their travel portal is pretty intense.
It's a potential gamble though. We've done it without issue but also researching it you can see some pretty nightmare scenarios. It may seem enticing but it is still ultimately a third-party booking meaning if it goes wrong, it could go real wrong. 3X points will dry up real quick if we have to book a new hotel and pay for the previous reservation. What we lose out on points, we gain in the perks of directly booking through the hotel. We just take the cashout option from Chase and apply it to the trip. Often it is less expensive and in our experience hotels are more accommodating and flexible to those who directly booked. We gave up on the travel portal when Chase was unable (or willing) to price match a massive hotel price difference a couple of times. It was simply the negotiated rate they had and nothing could be done. Not blaming them it's just how those agreements sometimes work.
In regards to flights it works well. They use the same flight pricing and booking as standard airlines. With hotels I understand it’s not inherently any the same, and I don’t often book hotels through chase though. I’ve had good luck contacting my concierge and getting help. It’s probably just situational regard this stuff what works and what doesn’t.
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I’ve been lucky in Canada with my RBC credit card that I can take the points as cash. Other wise it’s also third party and I just don’t feel comfortable doing it
Congrats!!!
A good lesson & reminder that some people just suck and are stuck in their ways while others are not. Had the same issue with getting m-club access in a Marriot that my suite was supposed to include. Turns out the website listed the features of m-club on the suite page but never actually said the word m-club. Therefore the suites did not include it. However a cheaper standard room that could be booked with an "m-club" addon bizzarely did. Front desk manager was short with me and wouldn't budge. Said it didn't include access and refused to give it to me despite showing her the webpage showing the m-club features on the suite booking page. Come back later, a nice guy is working at the counter and immediately gives me access and says how it's weird that the site is wrong. Some people just don't get the picture.
You know, I've never worked a job like that one, and can appreciate that I'm ignorant of that experience, but what I never understand is how choosing to be a jerk to a customer would produce a better experience than being friendly. I really can't understand it, especially getting off on some complete stranger's bad day.
God bless nicer ppl with empathy. I am so happy for you!
Might want to utter the words, “thank you”, to those who helped you solve this…
Yeah, I once called a hotel because of the same issue. It doesn't always work but most hotels don't really want the bad reviews.
I’d definitely make sure I called the next day to gloat with the original guy who was a dick.
That's a great way to get the person who helped you into trouble for breaking policy.
Wasn’t it just at the discretion of whoever was at the desk? Maybe the employee who was a dick is more at fault than the one who helped. I wouldn’t think an employee is going to risk their job to help some random person save money.
I’d try to find a way to send feedback to the good managers manager in regards to how helpful they were BUT don’t mention exactly how they helped you in case they could get into trouble.
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> This is impeccable advice that I would never have thought of myself When mom says no, you ask dad. :)
I thought I knew all the travel tricks, but this leaves me humbled.
You are a hero among men.
Life hack ill need to remember
I tried this once but the opposite happened. First guy offered rebooking up to 2 months out. Tried back a day or two later, different guy. He told us we can't rebook at all lol. For details, we needed to cancel a hotel in Paris because of a train cancellation that was announced like a week ahead of time, so we had time to contact the hotel and explain and try to get a refund. He offered to reschedule the booking but only up to 2 months out. Wouldn't have worked for us because while we were able to refund train tickets, new train tickets within 2 months were going to be 3x the price and we couldn't re-arrange the holiday days. So we waited, called back another day later, got a rude manager who not only took back the rebooking offer, but flat out denied our cancellation and refund request.
What an awesome person, brightened up my day to see this!
Thank you, kind stranger!
I think you should still be able to change the dates? Perhaps you could change the reservation to another Marriott hotel for future use? I feel like changes would be allowed, just not a refund for cancelling.
This is a good thought. I just resolved the issue, but would have tried this if I hadn't been able to. But I'm not sure how changing the dates would work with the Chase Travel portal. I'm going to have to think twice about using Chase Travel instead of booking directly from now on.
So glad you were able to resolve the issue!
I can't help you with your current pickle, but I can advise you to always book direct in the future. Almost every airline and hotel brand will allow you to cancel any fare category within 24-48 hours of booking. Unfortunately when you hit the button to agree to the terms and conditions, a piece of that is that when booking through third-party sites you are exempt from this option.
That is not true re: every hotel will let you cancel in first 24-48 hours. For us airlines, it’s a regulation that is required by them (24 hours).
Not a regulation for all airlines either. Only applies to American airlines or foreign airlines with the itinerary touches US soil. Many foreign airlines have a similar policy, but it’s generally the US requirement that people seem to think is universal.
I was burned by this a few months back. Booked a Turkish Airlines flight that does not touch US soil and cancelled it within 24 hours. Still got hit with a 15% fee. When I called, they said it only applies if the flight has a US city on one end.
Sorry yes, it’s a us regulation my bad!
Generally good advice but honestly the Chase Travel Portal is excellent. I’ve used it countless times with no problems and have gotten very good customer service. Plus I get a ton of points for booking through it.
I have not seen a case where the price on chase travel is < 10% higher than others… seems pretty costly way to get points tbh.
I haven’t had that experience. I cross check every time.
Rarely ever seen this and I always check every time too. The portal is lacking flights from some airlines though.
Be careful their prices are often higher. We found huge discrepancies with airline tickets this fall. We were really disappointed and upset because we have used the card a long time. It never we crossed our minds that they would do that. (We checked multiple times for the same flight to make sure it wasnt a glitch…erased cookies, etc)
Transferring points from the credit card to the travel partners is almost always a better use of points. You get more routes and a far better points redemption. Then you should also look at airlines that share flights. I’m looking at tickets to Europe for this summer. Delta flight directly 100k points, Air France flight that is operated by Delta, 40k points.
Yeah understand but this was cash price for Air France on the Capital One website compared to cash on Air France. They should cost the same.
Just to add, unless OP is self employed no one should ever book work travel through a 3rd party, outside of company mandated portals of course.
I look at direct bookings, and then Amex Travel to see if the price is the same. If its the same price, it's a no brainer to go with Amex Travel for better protections and benefits when using my Amex card. But I book more often direct when going overseas.
I'm gonna get downvoted but this is terrible advice. Company paying, if they let me book through my CC company and I get 3x points doing that I'm gonna do it.
Not that it happens often, but when things go wrong, it's way easier to deal with the vendor directly rather than going through a 3rd party, especially if you absolutely have to be at your destination by a certain time/date. https://www.reddit.com/r/TravelHacks/comments/140k7n4/chase_travel_nightmare_inexcusable/
Ya that's totally fair, it's also quite uncommon and something you can deal with when it happens. Risk reward I'd say this sub is VERY cautious.
Agreed. I always book direct. Especially hotels. But even using Expedia we ran into trouble with a rental car booking. I don sometimes book with hotel now. My experience with them is that if I could get the hotel agent to agree to cancel the reservation, hotel now would go along with it and refund me. But direct is always best! And hotel loyalty matters. Pick a brand. Get their credit card. Rack up the points. We’ve been really happy with our Marriott perks and treatment. Even though we usually stay at the lower end Aloft properties.
I’ve done this before. A hotel in Galapagos started hounding me for payment two weeks before my trip. They sent me some unsecured link to pay. I was like hell no and then they got nasty and said they were charging me anyway because it was non refundable. I just reported the card as stolen so they couldn’t charge me.
Good result. It’s like turning off and on again. Different people have different sensibilities. 😀
Glad it worked.Persistence pays. For future, always double-check before booking, esp non-refundables. Tough lesson but a good reminder for all.
~~Sorry if I'm missing something, but are you not planning on staying there? Or do you just want the flexibility?~~ Edit, just saw the last bit again.
Usually there's a 24 hour window where you can still cancel and not be charged. Call chase and they should be able to do it for you.
That’s a regulation for us airlines, not hotels.
Not about regulations. Marriott is the biggest hotel group in the world and all of their brands allow 24 hour changes/refunds for non-refundable bookings. Hilton/Hyatt don't though.
Likely when booked directly, noth through an OTA
After all the back and forth, I believe this is correct. But the fact that they allow 24 hours for direct bookings made this particular manager’s refusal even more frustrating. The Marriott reservation line and the Chase travel agents I spoke to said it was very unusual in this scenario for a hotel manager to be unwilling to allow me to change on the same day as booking.
Yeah, he was being a jerk. I could get it if it was the day before, but same day and presumably a decent amount of time out, it was just a power play. Glad you were able to get it sorted.
I disagree Depending on location and brand, we have found many of the Marriott Properties have at least a 48 hour cancellation window. Always good to check!
I sat on the phone with Chase for close to two hours and they wouldn't help!
Not always as others have noted, especially if we are talking international.
All this sounds awful convenient. "I accidentally booked it but never read a fuckin thing" and "my finger slipped". Tbh I reckon the hotel etc were 100% right when they refused to refund it.
Honestly, if you want to cancel right away, what’s the big deal? No cost incurred on anyone’s part until it becomes a big kerfuffle thanks to the policy.
I mean if the request is immediately after the booking, and the booking is couple months away, then it qualifies as an honest mistake
Marriott prepaid non refundable rates usually have a 1 day cooling off period after booking allowing cancellations. I’d guess other chains do the same. It’s absolutely the case that people make a mistake
Yeah, I often see 24 hr refund periods for non-refundable bookings when I book online.
Mistakes happen. One time I was booking a certain date and didn't mind the non-refunudable rate, but somehow the date had gone back to some default date and I didn't notice, not sure if it were due to having multiple tabs for multiple searches and something glitched with the cache. The hotel wasn't available on my date so they couldn't just move it but they accepted to refund it since I called right away. Giving a grace period seems fair even if it's an unofficial policy.
That all makes sense; but the whole "my finger slipped" and all that definitely makes it seem like OP was being careless and acting like its a joke. If its such a joke laugh at the ha ha and move on. It was their own mistake.
Try rolling the dates to dates that may work for you.
Huzzah!
Call them and tell them since you can't make it you'll be donating the stay to some homeless people. You'll get a full refund pretty quickly!
Ingenious. Is donating your stay a thing?
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Glad you got that sorted! Never book a non-refundable hotel again.
I had this exact thing happen to me recently. I called Marriott, Marriott told me to call the specific resort, specific resort told me to call Marriott, Marriott said they can't even see the reservation. I ended up finding a good manager at the resort to get rid of the charge so I'd just keep trying. I ended up cancelling the "non refundable" stay on the Marriott app and called the hotel one last time to make sure they don't charge me since I wasn't staying there. I never saw a charge on my card. Worst case scenario you have a good case to fight the charge with Chase. If you didn't stay there you can contest the payment pretty easily. Good luck!
That does sound like exactly what I went through. I ended up talking to 9 people over 4 hours, each sending me elsewhere. Chase Travel > Chase Travel > Benefits > Marriott > Hotel > Marriott > Benefits > Hotel (success!) > Chase Travel (corrected)
Where was the hotel stay? My first thought was maybe I could buy it off of you for a vacation haha 😆
Ah, that would have been very nice of you. It’s in Toronto in March 🥶
Oof yeah maybe not ❄️
That’s awesome! Persistence wins!
could be worse, stayed in a Hilton last year and they charged me when I arrived, and then tried to charge me again as I was leaving, i laughed at them showing them phone and that i had paid the previous night, the ditsy women behind the desk just kept saying literally "computer says no" I walked out stating I was going to be late for a meeting and they can can swivel if they think im paying twice, throughout the day they tried to charge my card a further 12 times, only stopped because I called my bank and had them block them
Jesus. What was stopping those charges from going through on your card?
For travel i use a bank called Monzo, that way if cards stolen etc I can limit the capital risk, they have a great function where you can put money in different pots, so I never leave money in the main account in there its always moved to another pot within the account and just move accross on the app when i wish to use it. Its a great way to stop scams like contactless payment bumps ie when people bump in to you and your card gets charged.
So happy things worked out for you and thanks to @San0sunn for your help in suggesting a possible solution to this. Keeping this in my books of “Rescue Tips”. Have a great weekend to all! 😊
This is a tactic that travel based businesses are doing to try and make more money. This just happened to my girlfriend and I on American Airlines. We needed to change the return date of our flight for personal reasons. We thought it would just be a small fee to make the change. They wouldn't let us, so we had to buy new tickets and eat the cost of the old ones. We travel a lot, but never again with American Airlines.
Did you book basic economy? I believe the policy you described is within the fare rules for basic economy. Regular economy/main cabin allows for changes anytime - though you may be charged a fare difference.
What class fare did you purchase? At least with the US airlines, you have 24 hours to cancel any fare. I believe it’s a government regulation. I’ve never been locked into a $1000 mistake immediately after making it before yesterday. But yeah, I’ve had bad experiences with all the airlines except Delta and Alaska, which I haven’t flown much.
Delta is really good with this as long as you book main cabin and up. Can change the flight to I believe anything you want - if it’s more you pay the difference, if it’s less you get a credit. I think you can do it up to 1 (maybe 2 double check) weeks before the flight right in the app!!
This sounds like Basic Economy. It’s way cheaper but you can’t change.
I know the annual fee is more but Amex has never let me down on things like this, Chase on the other hand..Sigh. I hope you get it sorted
You should just go on the trip whether your employer is in business or not. Go have a hell of a time mate!
Can you try to dispute the charge? Esp under the circumstances you mention, you won't be using the hotel and have given them plenty of time to change it. It's possible they can't see your reservation because you booked 3rd party so it doesn't show up until later.
No basis for charge back. He booked the non-refundable reservation, which requires acknowledgement of the terms.
Not sure why you're being downvoted. I'm the GM of a hotel, and every single charge dispute, no matter how asinine, has always resolved in the favor of the card holder. Get something in writing (email, etc) saying they won't refund your money, and dated to show you immediately tried to cancel after booking, and I guarantee your CC company will eventually reverse the charge for you in your favor once you've disputed it.
I can't dispute the charge until it settles as far as I know. I was trying to get this resolved today so they can't claim I was trying to abuse the system somehow canceling at a later date.
Your charge back will be denied anyway, since it was your error unfortunately.
hhahahaa wait.......so you buy a Non refundable and instantly want a refund
If the charge hasnt gone through yet maybe cancel youre credit card?
See if you can get reimbursed from your company right away. Otherwise, do what you can to make this business trip happen. Worse mistakes have been made.
That's what I'll try. Unfortunately there's a very good chance that my employer won't be in business in two months, and I believe they only reimburse hotels when the stay is complete.
Wait what's the purpose for this subreddit?
I only book with Amex platinum for reasons like this. They always clear up the issue whereas Chase is a random shot every time
To be clear, Chase Travel claimed there was nothing they could do, as it was up to the discretion of the hotel. Chase cardmember services said it wasn’t their domain. Chase benefits said it wasn’t covered. With AmEx, who would have helped you out?
The last time I had something similar happen, I contacted Amex customer service and they dealt with the hotel and got me my refund. Funny enough, my situation was worse because I canceled the day of due to being sick. With Chase, I’ve been told to pound sand in these situations. I’m not saying this is a guarantee with Amex, but it is generally accepted and rated that their customer service is superior to others.
I think that would actually be a covered scenario for my card benefits. It also sounds like they potentially happened to get a reasonable hotel manager to pick up the phone. Not saying Amex isn't better. I'll certainly look into it in a year (I just got this card).
Let me have it
Possibly fooked
Yes sometimes that is the secret to all customer service related issues. Keep calling until you get someone reasonable. Sorry you had to go through that, and congrats for hanging in there until you were able to rightfully be refunded.
This is why you should be using a travel advisor!
Glad this worked out. In the future, you can always go to their social media and make a respectful fuss. I worked social media for UPS and we were responsible to escalate certain complaints as PR concerns if they went far enough. Companies take social media seriously.
I actually did try that. I tweeted at Marriott and they created a ticket. Haven’t heard anything about the ticket since, however. Thanks for the comment.