A friend noticed this while attempting to cancel a booking earlier today. The specific section reads:
Guests who cancel Bookings confirmed, updated or rescheduled prior to March 25, 2020, for Events scheduled to occur on or following April 30, 2020, will not be entitled to cancel and will not be eligible to receive a refund due to COVID-19.
This is very frustrating as their poly up to today (3/26) was to allow a FULL refund in case of a state of emergency.
It makes some sense to restrict cancellation of bookings made, confirmed, or altered during the same emergency. There's a difference between an emergency that the customer could not have reasonably expected when making arrangements and one that they should have known existed and factored into their planning.
But this also covers bookings made in January, for example. While I agree with what you are saying the new policy does not exclude bookings made months ago to occur this summer.
Sorry, I must have misread “prior to” as “after” somehow. I agree that this is odd.
The thinking may be that they are presuming the emergency will be passed by April 30, or at least that, at this moment, cancelling that far out is not justified by the present emergency. Not endorsing, just speculating on the thought process.
We were supposed to be in Vienna today for a short vacation, but the city is at high risk and we would have had to be quarantined on the way back.
The hotel refused to refund the payment. I called and asked to extend from 3 nights to 10 nights. When they asked the reason, I replied that I just got back from Italy and am looking for a place to stay until the 14-day quarantine period is over. “I want to stay in one place and not move around,” I told them.
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 31.2 ms ] threadGuests who cancel Bookings confirmed, updated or rescheduled prior to March 25, 2020, for Events scheduled to occur on or following April 30, 2020, will not be entitled to cancel and will not be eligible to receive a refund due to COVID-19.
This is very frustrating as their poly up to today (3/26) was to allow a FULL refund in case of a state of emergency.
The thinking may be that they are presuming the emergency will be passed by April 30, or at least that, at this moment, cancelling that far out is not justified by the present emergency. Not endorsing, just speculating on the thought process.
“From a friend, a few days ago:
We were supposed to be in Vienna today for a short vacation, but the city is at high risk and we would have had to be quarantined on the way back.
The hotel refused to refund the payment. I called and asked to extend from 3 nights to 10 nights. When they asked the reason, I replied that I just got back from Italy and am looking for a place to stay until the 14-day quarantine period is over. “I want to stay in one place and not move around,” I told them.
They canceled my reservation immediately.”
From:
https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2020/03/16/how-to-get-your...
And the thread on it:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22600819