Another “Keep a Paper Trail of Hotel Communications” Reminder.

In January I made reservations with a San Francisco hotel in respect of our two sojourns that we’d be making in that city in April: a 3 night stay on arrival, and a 2 night stay on our return from exploring Big Sur. The hotel website terms gave the cancellation policy as 48 hours before arrival.

In February I changed our plans, which involved canceling these reservations.

The hotel’s reservation system was somewhat unusual in that one can make an (immediately confirmed) reservation on line, and one gets an immediate emailed confirmation of the reservation – but one can’t ake a correspondingly (immediately confirmed) CANCELLATION on-line or look up the status of one’s reservations. Rather, the emailed confirmations of our on-line reservations stated simply “if you have any questions about this reservation, call x number or email this address.”

I decided to call to find out what was the best means to proceed given that I wanted to cancel both reservations. The clerk who answered me said we could do it over the phone, and proceeded to give me two cancellation numbers, one for each cancelled reservation.

I thanked him and asked if he could email me confirmations of those cancellations; to my surprise, he replied, “no, we don’t usually do that.”

Rather than debate the point, I got off the phone and immediately emailed the hotel with the particulars of the reservations I’d just canceled, the cancellation numbers I’d received, and a request for the hotel that, notwithstanding their policy of not sending out email confirmations of cancellations, would they please reply to this email to confirm these cancellations.

I was relieved when the hotel almost immediately sent a ‘reply’ to my email saying “we hereby confirm the cancellation of all your reservations.”I printed off the email reply, stuck it in my trip file – and for good measure kept my on-line copies of the email correspondence.

All this was a bit of bother, but it turned out to be well worth it. I opened my VISA statement this month to find two charges from the hotel totaling over three hundred dollars. The charges can only be cancellation penalties (erroneously) assessed to my supposed ‘no-show’ reservations.

I immediately contacted the CC company (if you look on the back of your statement, the blurb informs you that the deadline for reporting errors is 30 days from a transaction’s being posted.) VISA’s ‘dispute resolution’ reps gave me a ‘case file number’ and we agreed that I would fax them – you guessed it – a copy of my email to the hotel and the hotel’s reply. I am now settling down to wait 4 to 6 weeks for VISA to rule on the disputed charges.

Does this mean that the hotel in question is a slimy operation to be avoided at all costs? In my view, not necessarily. I tend to give people – and businesses – the benefit of the doubt. But I’m posting this just to remind everyone that all the work you expend keeping detailed records is worth it – even and perhaps especially when the vendor insists it ‘isn’t their policy’.

I’ll keep you posted about further developments.

Did you also contact the hotel after you noticed the CC charges? What did they tell you? If the hotel realizes it made a mistake (of charging you), it should contact the CC and withdraw those charges, no?

Hi Sue, I agree about documenting everything, I always do but I too am curious if you called the hotel after receiving your CC statement. I have had a few errors at times and before contacting my CC Co., I have called the hotel or store and immediately had a credit go through on my CC a/c.

Hi yk / loveitaly

I thought of that, but this was a trans-border transaction involving a currency exchange. It may not be so simple for the vendor to back it out, depending on how the currency fluctuates between the date of the original transaction and the date of the credit. Either way, they are probably going to need VISA's advice, and either way, I had to inform VISA because of the deadline on reporting of errors. Plus, for various reasons, it isn't convenient for me to 'interim finance' the charges, at no charge to either VISA or the hotel, which means that when my statement deadline passes in a few days time, my account will start to accrue interest on the unpaid portion of the balance. So the interest will also have to be backed out.

I confess, too, that because I took such care to establish good communication, I have rather lost confidence - not in the hotel's honesty, necessarily, but in the competence/capability of their policies and procedures. In one of my career lives, I was a systems analyst. And on the basis of that experience, I intuit that this is not a simple error like a typo. For example, howsoever they are coming up with their cancellation numbers, such method in this day and age should automatically be updating their reservation file. I have a strong suspicion it ain't. And given that that is the case, this error has a high probability of happening again until the system gets fixed, i.e. revised.

This isn't a huge hotel, but it's not a 3 room bed and breakfast, either. So with a design flaw like this, a lot more people than just me have the potential to lose time (which equals money) as a result. In short, it's worth emphasizing to the hotel that they have a problem, and that kind of emphasis comes best from a party like VISA, which has enough clout to command management's attention.

I recently had a dispute with a hotel and as part of the dispute resolution process, Visa wanted to know what had happened when I called the hotel. Even if they need Visa's help, I would call the hotel and then email them (and attach your previous emails). You won't have to pay the amount while Visa is working on it, but you may find that the hotel can reverse it in a few days.

Sue....My only comment has to do with your Visa card/account...well, more broadly would apply to ALL credi tcard accounts...I have found it "wise" to check my cradit card activity online on a more or less daily basis....That way, in your case at least, time would be on yor side.You would have noticed your charges a little earlier, and your time to resolve this matter would have been lengthened.And yes, I learned the hard way.

Thank you both for your responses.

mglb, I gave serious thought this morning to contacting the hotel, and I've drafted up an email. I agree it would make life simpler for everyone if we could resolve it ourselves, howsoever imperfectly. But I hesitate because now that I've contacted VISA,I'm worried about the 'too many chefs' syndrome - you know, confusion arising from too many parties adjudicating the process. It doesn't help that when dealing with either VISA or anything but a one-man-shop vendor, one tends to speak to a different person on the phone each time. At the moment I'm inclined to let VISA sort it out for me.

BeachBoi - wise advice. You say you learned it the hard way - oi, don't we all learn things that way! I agree, it is time to stop relying overly much on paper statements, because they just take too long to arrive.

Sue, I still like paper statements, but going online every day, with me its part of my routine...Check email, bank account, credit cards, then I'm done.I like the paper trail because our economy/world hasnt gone totally paperless YET....I also go online with Sprint, one of the roomies is an extra line on my fone, and if he's inching towards his "limit" for example, I cut him off.

I think it's worth a shot. If the hotel reverses the charge you can tell Visa it's been resolved.

Thanks for the post. It is helpful information indeed.

Sue- any updates?

thanks for tuning in yk.

I don't expect to have any updates for at least 3 weeks. I've left it in the hands of the CC as I'm super busy right now.