I don’t like non-refundable hotel rates. My plans change too often, and the savings aren’t usually worth it to me. Depending on the chain, sometimes I can convert a non-refundable rate to a more expensive refundable one (hotels like charging more!) and then cancel if I need to. Sometimes an individual hotel will waive the penalty for goodwill.

During Covid I had a booking that was initially cancellable, but I picked up the virus just before the trip. The hotel was going to charge me for cancelling late, so I told them I’d just come check-in and I’d sit in the lobby and tell everyone I had Covid, because if the hotel was going to insist that I couldn’t cancel the booking then I only thought it fair to warn other guests.

One of my readers ran into trouble checking into a hotel, and the hotel wouldn’t give him a refund either, so he took a similar guerilla approach and won. He calls the tactic “Protester-style.”

He was checking into the Comfort Inn Downtown Salt Lake for one night at around 5:30 p.m., encouraged by their current 8,000 point bonus for two nights offer.

The front desk ran his credit card for room and tax, $102.99, and then wanted the card for a $100 incidental deposit. However, his card got authorized 3 times for $100 each – but the desk saw the authorization as not going through and demanded another card. The guest refused, and offered a cash deposit which the desk clerk refused.

• The hotel wouldn’t check him in.
  
• But they also wouldn’t refund the stay.

Credit: Choice Hotels

The guest called the next day to insist on the refund, since the hotel refused to provide the room. He was refused because the rate was “non-refundable.” Then he showed up in person a day later and spoke with a manager, who also refused.

He want next door to the Embassy Suites where be borrowed a Sharpie pen, found recycled cardboard in a dumpster near the hotel, and and wrote the words “BED BUGS” on it. He parked himself on a public sidewalk in front of the hotel at “exactly 3:28pm.” He was out there for half an hour, and the hotel provided him a refund to go away.

After I had stood on the sidewalk for about 15 minutes, Mr. Singh appeared. With two colleagues (a female housekeeper and maintenance guy).

Me (to Mr. Singh) Are you going to give me a refund NOW?

Singh: No, now I’m going to bill you $2,000.00

Me thinking this now might be really fun.

Singh’s Maintenance guy (6’4” brutal looking, tattooed Hispanic) stared down at me, I’m thinking trying to intimidate me. His looks were straight out of a state correctional facility.

Singh: Leave, you’re on private property.

Maintenance Guy, shouting to me: Get off, you’re trespassing.

Me: No I’m not, this sidewalk is public access, a public easement.

Singh then phones up police.

Just then, a generic white, maybe ten year old Chevy pickup was exiting the Comfort Inn’s lot. [He] shouted to me, “I’ve got your back, man, I’ll be parked down the block.”

A few minutes elapsed. Singh’s phone then rang. From what I could understand (we were maybe four feet away) it was Salt Lake PD phoning saying they will not respond.

Singh promptly hung up the phone. Instantly turned to me, said “I’ll give you a refund right now.”

The Chevy Pickup driver turned out to be an undercover Salt Lake Police Officer. He “[s]aid he was the one who called off Singh’s call to dispatch.”

Last year this same reader turned to the same guerrilla tactics when a hotel refused to honor a prepaid reservation for him because both his drivers license and passport were expired. He had a state-issued temporary license in hand that they refused. So he purchased poster board and a sharpie from Walmart, and wrote out a question whether the hotel had bed bugs and again stood outside on the sidewalk (public property) holding up the sign. The hotel issued a refund check.