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Marriott/Starwood confirms restrictive new cancellation policy

The Marriott Residence Inn in Portland, OR now has a 48 hour cancellation policy (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

Oh, come on! You now have to cancel your hotel reservation two days ahead of time or face getting dinged for that first night? Yep. Afraid so.

Effective today (June 15, 2017), new last-minute cancellation policies are going into effect at Marriott/Starwood hotels. 

In order to avoid paying for that first night (including taxes and fees), you now have to cancel a full 48 hours (or more, depending on property) in advance.

Here’s the official word from Marriott today:

Marriott International is implementing a cancellation policy at hotels in the Americas including the United States, Canada, Caribbean and Latin America, across all brands except for Design Hotels. The revised policy allows us to make rooms available to guests that would have otherwise gone unoccupied due to a last-minute cancellation.

The change: While cancellation policies vary by hotel, hotels whose policy is to allow guests to cancel their room reservations on the day before arrival without incurring a fee are faced with a significant number of unsold rooms due to last minute cancellations. Guests will now be required to cancel their room reservation by midnight 48 hours prior to arrival to avoid a fee. This will allow hotels a better chance to make the rooms available to guests seeking last minute accommodations.

The revised cancellation policy will take effect on June 15, 2017 and applies to reservations made on or after June 15, 2017. 

Because cancellation policies vary by hotel and for certain events and rates, customers should always check the cancellation policy that applies at the time of booking. Cancellation information is provided to guests prior to finalizing a reservation on www.Marriott.com. 

Some observers suspect that hotel chains impose these rules to prevent travelers from booking a standard rate, then canceling the reservation at the last minute and re-booking at a cheaper rate using popular new last-minute booking sites and apps.

We checked today, and sure enough, there’s the two-day cancellation notice on this reservation for the Residence Inn Portland Pearl District

This sucks for business travelers because our schedules can change on a dime, and frequently do so with much less than 48 hours advance notice. Remember the good old days when you could cancel without penalty up to 6 pm on the day of arrival? In 2015, both Marriott and Hilton did away with that, upping the deadline to 24 hours- which did not sit well with TravelSkills readers at all (see post). Now this.

Now that Marriott has cornered the market with its purchase of Starwood, it can make consumer-unfriendly moves like this. Regrettably, we’ll likely see the rest of the industry follow suit– and keep in mind that several brands already have onerous cancellations policies in place, so always check before you buy! Another tip: Many hotels will work with travelers individually on these fees, so try to work it out with an agent if you can. 

How do you feel about a 48 hour cancellation policy? Please leave your comments below. 

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Comments

  1. Typically, a change in stay because of travel related issues will result in no charge. You just have to call the hotel and explain the situation. In many cases, the staff person can waive that fee. The higher your status with the chain, the more likely they will waive the fee as well.

  2. I completely understand being skeptical…but Marriott is going to get a lot of spare capacity and scale by buying Starwood.

  3. All true. But I have found that when I need to make a change in violation of cancellation policy that a polite call to the hotel always works. Particularly well received if you can note that you are booking your alternate hotel with the same chain.

  4. Sigh. It was inevitable. I’m sure the hospitality industry has watched with envy as airlines have made huge amounts on “restriction fees”.

    In other ways, I see this as an issue with how the industry drives rates… I’m somewhat lucky that my travel has a predictable pattern, so I simply keep my “prebook” rolling six months forward – to get the best rates, which are typically 35% of a week in advance. I learned this behavior as it has become impossible to even get a room in the Silicon Valley with a week’s notice.

    In the long run, this is simply not going to bode well for the travel industry. Airlines already did it, I see “fee features” increasingly in rental cars, and with hotels now – this is going to drive down travel in the long run.

    Annoying there will not be a decrease in rates correlated with the increase in occupancy…

  9. I own my own company and this is basically my policy. Refundable same day or one day prior if that is all available. 48 hours is unacceptable. Money says the elite levels will get a pass if they call the hotel directly.

  10. Well I only use Marriott brands on occasion now it will be not at all. A day before is tough but 2 days will not work at all.

  11. So when the airline cancels my flight, I’m now going to get stuck with a hotel room charge as well? Great job, travel industry! You are giving me lots of hard data that I can use to convince my employer that it would be more economical via WebEx than for me to fly to the meeting.

  12. Andie, bullshit… It’s only fair! I hope you keep your job at Marriott when business suffers

  13. The small boutique chain Joie de Vivre has this same policy. Recently got charged a night when I canceled 47 hours before check in when travel plans changed.

  14. This will blur the line between pre-paid and a regular reservation, especially for one night reservations (the amount of the cancel charge). If booking near scheduled arrival time, why not book the pre-paid and get a lower rate than the non pre-paid? Here is a thought–if you can’t make a one night reservation and it is too late to cancel, check-in with the app and get an electronic room key–why make it easy for Marriott to resell a room you already paid for? At the very least, if charged for a night, Marriott should provide an elite night credit and Rewards points as though the room was occupied.

  15. Bet they won’t refund the fee if the room does get rented–even if it is for a higher rate.

  16. The whole point of paying the full, unrestricted rate is to receive that flexibility. My company has been explicit to only book rooms with same day cancel without penalty unless no other property offers it, knowing this means a higher rate (our plans often change last minute). This means we will now be prohibited from booking at Marriott. They need to reinstate this capability (if it’s at a higher rate fine). Give the customer choice and they will pay according to what they need. Ignore the revenue opportunity and someone else will steal your customers.

  17. It’s Russian Roulette with a fully-loaded gun. You can probably pretty much count on nearly every charged, unfilled reservation causing at least one customer to quit this hotel chain for life.

  19. I actually think it’s a good thing…or at least better than most might think:

    1) A 48 hour window allows Marriott to offer more (and deeper) last minute deals. Moreover, you might think only would help out leisure travel. But this policy also means that there will also be deals during the week. Corporate travel desk staff going home on Friday now have to have their plans firmed up before leaving for the weekend…allowing more last minute sales *during* the weekend for the week ahead.

    2) I’d also posit the biggest losers are aggregators/on line agencies that now can’t sell their inventory back at the last minute. Moreover, many people prepay these days, so I’m not sure how much impact this really will have on them.

    It is definitely more inconvenient…but I’d still argue there’s a definite upside…potentially at least.

  20. If your stays are at relatively few properties, there is every chance that a hotel will allow exceptions to their cancelation policy. However, if you stay a few times a year at a number of properties, you are likely to start getting charged for late cancelations. In the past members of the Platinum / Diamond teams would call properties to ask them to ‘take one for the team’ – i.e. bend a policy to keep happy someone who may not be that valuable to the property but is profitable to the group. No longer. Teams at both companies have been prohibited from calling properties for Diamond/Platinum members. It may be short-sighted. (We shall see,) . But, for now, the property owners have put their foot down and told Marriott / HIlton to back off on the exceptions to policy.

  21. I won’t be booking a Marriott or Starwood hotel with the new cancellation policy. Do these hotels guarantee that they won’t overbook and walk their customers? You can’t have it both ways.

  22. In all reality, there are many different cancellation policies out there for hotels… some saying you can’t cancel at all. But it’s really up the person at the front desk. They are humans too, and they know we all have situations. Pulse, they don’t want to loose your business. ( marriott employee)

  24. just something else to take into consideration when comparing marriott with IHG or Wyndham …

  25. Can’t answer regarding Marriott/SPG, but just booked an award stay at Waldorf-Astoria property a couple days ago, and the cancellation requirement was 14 days in advance. [and this was not over a holiday period]

    So if Marriott Rewards/SPG is following suit of HHonors, I’d say there’s a very good chance, it will also be Marriott/SPG’s new policy. 🙁

  26. Sigh… the U.S. airlineification of the Hotel Industry.

    AirBnB and not chasing status with hotel chains is looking better and better….

  29. “…the rest of the industry will follow suit.” Really ? Where have you been? Hilton started with more restrictive cancellation policies months ago. But theirs has been more stealthy. Some properties require one day’s notice, some two, some three, some as many as two weeks. Then several weeks ago Hilton ended the practice of reps at their Diamond Desk calling properties to get exceptions to cancellation policies for Diamond members of their Honors program. Business plans change? Tough- unless you work for one of Hilton’s biggest customers (e.g. GE) which can still cancel until 6pm on the day the reservation starts, you’ll get charged one night rooms plus tax.

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