Hotels.com (UK)
 

Would appreciate advice from anyone who can provide it. Have made a booking with Hotels.com in Uk. The proposed departure date from my Bali Hotel is on a religious holiday when travel outside hotel is prohibited. This was not revealed to me until the booking confirmation was received. I therefore tried to reduce my stay by one day and get a partial refund. All I repeatedly get from their customer service is "the Hotel has a strict no refund condition for the booking". They are not interested in discussing the circumstances why I am requesting the refund. Can anyone advise me how I can pursue this in the UK?

I suspect that you won't be able to. Hotels.com differentiate between the hotels they sell that you can cancel prior to arrival and those that you can't, sounds like you picked a hotel that you can't. I would imagine you have to chalk it up to experience unfortunately.

It always was a non-refundable booking. The problem was that when I made the booking with my original check out date Hotels.com did not reveal to me that I could not leave the hotel because of the religious festival which prohibits travel on my check out date. Only once I made the booking and paid did they tell me on the confirmation that travel was prohibitive.

As the booking was made in UK I need to ascertain how I pursue a refund as the booking was accepted without the travel ban being revealed at the time of booking. I believe that this contravenes UK trading law.

You send them an email. Mention they failed to disclose facts relating to the booking, facts which are relevant because of a religious festival and that you are not a local and cannot be expected to know about untypical travel restrictions. I believe therefore this counts as a misrepresentation. If you get no joy, you go to your credit card company and make a claim under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974.

Best of luck,

PM

@TCAS FAN, where exactly were you planning to go on your original checkout day?

Even the airport is closed on Nyepi Day.