Did you know that if you redeem points for a hotel stay and end up needing to cancel within the cancelation period, you could actually be on the hook for the cash cost of the stay? As absurd as that sounds, it is true with some major hotel loyalty programs, and it tends to catch people off guard.
I get emails about this from shocked hotel guests all the time, so in this post, I’d like to cover the basics of this policy. After all, it’s something that I think many people don’t realize when they make a points booking.
In this post:
You’d assume that if you cancel a hotel booking after the cancelation deadline, at worst you’d forfeit the points that you spent. But that’s not the case. With both Marriott Bonvoy and World of Hyatt, it’s common that if you cancel after the cancelation deadline, you’ll be refunded your points, and you’ll be charged the cash cost of your stay.
What’s the logic for this? It would appear the issue is that the hotel loyalty programs don’t reimburse hotels for award stays if you don’t actually stay. So therefore the hotel’s only other option to be reimbursed if you cancel within the deadline is to charge you the cash cost of a stay.
Hotels do a lousy job disclosing this hidden rule
I think the policy of charging someone for a cancelation in a currency that’s different than what they reserved in is incredibly shady. But what I think is actually even worse is how poorly this is disclosed by the major hotel groups.
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on One Mile at a Time.
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