- The St. Regis Aspen’s Unconscionable Cancelation Policy by One Mile At A Time. This policy is absolutely ridiculous. If you want to have such a policy then the very least you could do is clearly disclose it to customers before booking. Marriott doesn’t have much goodwill with loyalty members left and getting hit with a $1,000 fee is an easy way to kill what’s left.
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I honestly don’t get the outrage of the cancellation policy: you need to put it in perspective. The average night is $2500 — they charge less than 50% of that for no-shows.
If you had paid in cash, you wouldn’t argue that they should not charge the fee and keep the full room price instead. It is just easier to refund the full price and charge the no-show penalty separately.
The only reason people are outraged that suddenly something they considered “free” costs real money. If they were to not refund any points instead of charging the fee, I am sure people would be outraged that they don’t refund the same percentage as they do for cash refunds.
It’s stated that there will be a cancellation/no-show fee after 60 days prior arrival. Yes, they could add that it would be $1000, but I have seen examples where the fee is different — so maybe it is just not a fixed rate known until to finalize your booking. They do include the exact amount in the confirmation email.
That’s just not true. The cancellation isn’t less than the nightly rate. Over the fourth of July the rooms are ~$1,000. However, after I booked they tell me in an email – not the confirmation email – email that comes from the StR a couple of days later that the cancellation is $2,000 a night.
To be clear this wasn’t disclosed at the time of booking. I contacted Marriott to ask about the fee after I got the email from the property and was assured that the email from the StR was an error and wouldn’t be charged that cancellation. They told me it applied to cash bookings. Seems like Marriott customer service was wrong again.
To your last point, it does NOT say that no/show fee applies in my confirmation email, when I booked, and on Marriott’s website currently. It says “Redemption, non-refundable if cancelled less than 30 days before arrival.” No where does it mention a cash cancellation or no show fee. If I paid in points, the points should be non-refundable. I never paid in cash or agreed to pay in cash when I booked the hotel.
The cancellation fee is disclosed for CASH rates when booking and it equals the nightly rate. For my dates over the fourth it would be ~$1,000. So they are charging double for a points no show to that of a cash no show. I don’t see how that isn’t wrong or outrageous.
I was going off the cases presented in the source and I was just spot-checking rates and rates in the season presented. Also, the source states that in one of the confirmation emails the fee was disclosed.
Don’t get me wrong. I would certainly be annoyed if I’d be hit by such a penalty. I’d try getting it reversed and would probably use similar arguments as the ones made. However, I do understand why the system can’t handle this and I do understand why the business has no interest to invest money to fix this.
I was not aware that the same penalty or higher penalty is charged for a lower off-season room rate. There have been comments on the source stating variable no-show penalties and I just assumed it would be calculated based on season, room rate and other factors. I don’t think it a hotel should be legally allowed to charge a no-show fee higher than the damage. Since that is hard to access, I think that a penalty equal to the first night room rate is appropriate.
You say you’d be OK that point bookings are non-refundable. While that might be true for you, I’d argue that many people rather pay a small penalty in cash than forfeiting a tenfold of that worth in points. It certainly depends on the specific case, how long your trip is and how you value points vs. cash. In many cases, I would not be OK with this.
While I fully understand the frustration of being charged cash, I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume that a hotel chain should maintain a separate system to track and charge no-fee penalties in points. The 99% case is just payment in cash, the penalty in cash. Point redemptions are a small percentage, cancellations on those an even smaller percentage of their daily business. This problem affects a minuscule percentage of customers and the business has no financial benefit from fixing this problem. Why would they?
If they don’t refund the points, keep a portion of the points and charge a penalty, the main argument of administrative restrictions is obviously wrong. If the system is already doing only partial refunds, there is no reason why the hotel should be allowed to charge an additional penalty.
Bit late to disclose it in a confirmation e-mail lol.
To clarify, at least in my case the hotel says the cancellation fee isn’t just the cost of a single night. It’s $2,000 per night. So for a five day stay, they want a no show fee of $10,000 if I can’t make it for whatever reason.
In this case, I would much rather be out 240,000 Marriott points which I agreed to use for this stay than $10,000 which they decided to change the no show penalty to days after I booked. It said it was non-refundable outside of 30-days, I booked knowing I would lose those points if I had to cancel inside 30-days. I did not however, agree to pay $10,000.
If the fee was reasonable and disclosed at booking I would feel differently about this. But to me, the policy of the StR Aspen as is feels punitive. Particularly, as the cancellation fee for a cash booking is less than that of a points booking.
And in my case, it wasn’t disclosed in the confirmation email. It was at the end of a welcome email a couple days later from the hotel.
I understand and agree with you in your case. This should be illegal IMO. But that is different from the cases presented in the source.
I don’t agree with the policy, I just understand why it is implemented the way it is, given that the cancellation fee and no-show penalty is not the room rate.
Honestly, I am surprised how much I care about this. Maybe I was just triggered by the attitude of the source author believing he is entitled that the fee is calculated in points using magic or fairy dust.
The average night is not $2,500 for starters. There are also very valid reasons why you might not be able to make your stay or why you might be late. Taking the points is entirely reasonable, taking the points and charging an UNDISCLOSED cancellation fee of four digits is not. I have no idea how you can think this sort of practice is OK.
It almost feels like I did read a different article than everybody else.
The example was peak-season where room rates start above 2k. In that context, the author mentioned a 1k cancellation fee, which is for whatever reason less than the room rate.
The source did not mention that they took the points AND charged a fee. It explicitly mentioned the opposite: the points where refunded IN FULL, a no-show penalty was charged separately.
I don’t think that the cancellation fee should ever be higher than the first night room rate. In fact, I think there should be no cancellation fees and a no-show penalty of the first night room rate.
I am not defending the cancellation policy, or that they disclose the fee so late. I am just pointing out the practical difficulties to calculate that fee in points and I don’t think anybody is entitled to it.
I get the argument: I paid in points. That’s my transaction currency, I want penalties charged in points too. But since the fee is not the first night rate and since a point has no dollar value. How should that practically work?
One could argue you calculate a per-booking dollar value of the points, but which cash prize do you use? At booking time, seems reasonable. So you need to keep track of that. Cool. What about free nights, how does this affect the point value. Is that included or excluded? This is just unreasonably complex.
SPG’s policy was that in the event of a non-refundable cancellation, you could choose to either pay a cash penalty or forfeit the points. Dig up an old SPG award confirmation and see.
Bonvoyed.
I don’t understand how they can be allowed to charge more for you not showing up than if you do…cancellation fees should be limited to what I’ve paid — I booked the room, it’s up to me if I want to show up or not.
I’ll say it again, I’ll never feel bad taking advantage of these companies because I know they would (and do) the same to me
Regarding Marriott, WOW.
I know I’m preaching to the choir, but… I love some of their tropical resorts. However, after hearing many bad reports lately, and especially having just read up on how they handled this case in Aspen, I’m not staying at any Marriott related hotel until they turn the ship around. Bonvoy!
So glad I didn’t sign up for any Marriott cards and opted for other hotel groups instead.