Hotel booking cancellation - Advice Needed PLS

[tricky69]

I booked 3 hotel rooms for me and some friends this weekend down in bournemouth for tonight and tomoorow night..
I booked it 12 days ago and then cancelled it 5 days. I then recieved this email this morning :-

This email is in response to your telephone call cancelling your booking for three rooms for May 13 and 14.

Although it is short notice we shall endeavour to re-let the rooms which you have booked, but it is highly unlikely now that we shall be able to let all three rooms on a group booking as we have turned so many people away over the last few weeks for this particular weekend.

If we can re-let your liability will be limited to the deposits on the rooms.

If we re-let through the Bournemouth Tourist Board there will be a 12.75% charge on the value of the bookings so obtained.

If we are unable to re-let the rooms, you will be liable in law to only 60% of the contract price of the proposed booking. For your information the relevant paragraph from our terms and conditions is published below and our Terms of Contract are available in full on the link at the foot of this page.


Basically it seems to be saying that i am liable to the cost of deposit which was £40 a room = £120

Is this right ? I am sure that if i cancell with 5 days till the booking it is not 'SHORT NOTICE'

What is my best approach to sort this out with out having to lose money ?

[bga]

What was the cancellation arrangement? Most smaller places are OK with 3 days which I think is OK unless it is a special or unique hotel.

If there is no mention of it you may be ok to tell them where to go - can you stop it being put on your card?

If it was 24h cancellation that would be different.
Again, check the cancellation policy. IMO 5 days is out of order for a B&B unless explicitly stated when it was booked. If it was when booked, then I'm afraid you will probably have to cough up.

[tricky69]

i booked the room over the phone and no mention of a unusual cancelation policy... they have already taken the deposit off my card, so need to get them to give me a refund....

Like i said i cancelled the room 5 days ago, so IMHO i should not have to pay anything !

It is just a B&B, nothing special or unusual....

[h2dca]

tricky69 said:

i booked the room over the phone and no mention of a unusual cancelation policy... they have already taken the deposit off my card, so need to get them to give me a refund.... Like i said i cancelled the room 5 days ago, so IMHO i should not have to pay anything ! It is just a B&B, nothing special or unusual....

I would speak to the tourist board but on the other side of the coin they are a small business and probably operating on a very small margin plus their operating season is quite limited. IMHO (very) I think their approach is not unfair but and this is the but you have the upper hand. As you entered into a contract without them explaining your rights this placed you at a disadvantage and in theory you may have selected an alternative provider if you had been told of the cancellation fee so considering both sides I would let the deposit go (Would you refund a deposit on a car sale for example if the buyer said no after a few weeks) and ask them to waive any penalty.

[m-five]

Complain about an unauthorised charge to your credit card company and tell the B&B that you are doing this as they will get charged.

Also point out to the B&B that yo are not happy with the e-mail terms and that they should have informed you of this when you cancelled 5 days ago.

[m-five]

Complain about an unauthorised charge to your credit card company and tell the B&B that you are doing this as they will get charged.

Also point out to the B&B that yo are not happy with the e-mail terms and that they should have informed you of this when you cancelled 5 days ago.

How did you find this B&B - if it was through some information website you can usually put comments & reviews on, if it was through the Tourist Board then complain to them as well.