Non Refundable Hotel Reservations caused by Covid

Considering you decided to buy the lower priced non refundable room this sounds fair. They might be going out of business

Generally (for every rule there is an exception and for every exception a rule) under new Covid French regulations if your reservation was cancelled because of Covid and the hotel ordered closed they are allowed to give you a voucher which is valid for 18 months. After that point if unused you may be entitled to a refund (how a nonrefundable reservation is impacted is questionable). The past is too foggy- were Paris hotels Ordered closed last September? Most hotels in Paris have been pretty much closed for a year with no income. Even if they reopen I doubt many could operate for months on end honoring vouchers with no fresh income. Sadly suggest you just write it off as a life expense.

Why would anybody continue to do business with outfits that keep the money even when they can't or won't deliver the product?

I am curious. Did you cancel or change the reservation or did they?

Sometimes you just have to pay the $2. Put these people on your 'Never, Never, Ever do business with again" list, and move on. I hope it was not a lot of money.

I had several bad experiences with non-refundable hotel deposits and I just don't do them. I lost the money on two, and one forced me to stay in a hotel that was not well located.

RS gave me prompt full refunds. He will probably see some of my money in the future, god willing and the creek don't rise.

P.S. I have several local shops in my city on my own Never Never list as well as one major US automaker. It happens. None will ever see another penny of my money.

TDW is correct. Non-refundable is Non-refundable. If the hotel is open for business and you don't show, you are not entitled to a refund. If the hotel is closed, you would be entitled because the hotel wouldn't be able to complete their contract with you. There are so many stories like this even pre-covid. I have never seen a significant savings in a non-refundable hotel offer worth the hassle.
Even at ten dollars a night for two weeks is only 140.00. For me it just isn't worth it.

It won't likely make any difference to the Parisian hotel if OP never does business with them again. I hope they will still have a business to run when Paris opens to tourists again. I understand, OP, that you likely paid a lot of money for your trip that you didn't get to take and you would like your money back. However, there is a world-wide pandemic. The hotel doesn't have any money to give you. I am sure that they would happily refund your money if they could.

I also lost money to a hotel in Paris for a trip scheduled in September, 2020. I hope that if the business is still open I will be able to stay with them for no extra charges in the future.

My willingness to pay non-refundable hotel nights has not changed. I have definitely saved enough money in the past to fund the money I lost here and it took a global event to cause it.

Hotels in Paris were closed in September of 2020 due to Covid shut downs. Americans were not able to fly into Paris as well.

Hi Mike,

I live in the US and had several reservations for small family-run hotels and B&B’s for Italy Sept. 2020. About half of those were non-refundable. I booked some non-refundable by choice, but many are small places that only offer non-refundable to book. (I’ve traveled to Europe 10 times and am used to these options.). I love these small, more personal places to stay! All of the non-refundable ones gave me a voucher for 2021 - one was reluctant but finally did give me one. One gave me a refund. The total vouchers were for $1400. All of the vouchers expire in September 2021.

Of course, I planned to just go this year, instead, but that is not going to happen now. At this point, I don’t think it wouldn’t be fair to ask them to give me an extended voucher. If the lodging is able to be open in September, I still want to wait until 2022 to give my daughter her first experience in Italy when everything is more settled again. For me, the $1400 lost is supporting needed family-run places to hopefully be open when we go, and yes, I will use them again. Also, since I usually go to Europe each year, it helps me a bit to mentally say I “spent less” in 2020 than normal and still have my health to travel again.

If you are going to do a lot of "no refund" bookings, then you need to buy travel insurance. Things happen. Over the years we have had a number of "unexpected" delays, cancellations, etc.

Hotels in Paris were closed in September of 2020

Not that it really means anything pertinent to the discussion but hotels were never part of the mandatory government closures. Some, a few, have remained open during the mandatory closures of almost everything else. Most hotels actually closed because they had no clients.

Tocard: Your comment is noted. I received an email from my hotel stating they were cancelling my reservation due to Covid mandates.

Frank: Of course one does not "need" to get travel insurance. I have also saved enough not covering every penny spent with travel insurance to fund my own losses. Medical care/evacuation/repatriation, now those I insure for.

How long ago did you contact them?

Ok. I think I get it. Because they were flexible with a voucher, you hope they can extend the date. I think that if you are patient, they might depending on their circumstances and how you approach them. They know you couldn’t and still can’t come to Paris.
1. They gave a voucher when they didn’t have to.
2. You want a favor, an extension.

Maintain a cheerful, polite attitude in your communication, let them know you are concerned for them, their safety ( Paris is in a third wave) and their business( they could lose it). In the big picture, you have a little problem but they have a big problem. So be sure you let them know that you are aware of these realities if you want them to do something for you. Be sure to thank them for being kind and generous to give you a voucher for a non-refundable stay in the first place. If you are willing to pay the difference in rates, if they will increase, let them know. In fact, ask them if they will give you 50% credit. You each win and lose a little.
For them, they will need the good reviews when they can open.

Write them, don’t call. If after your kind letter and understanding of their difficult position, they say no, then you can remember that it was supposed to be non-refundable anyway. They might be almost broke, they may have sold the place. It’s all been very frustrating for many.

I lost $500 to a hotel in Dubai. They offered me a voucher good for two months, until May 2020. LOL. I chose non-refundable. C’est la vie.

Many of us have, at some time, been guilty of being stupid (naive?). For me, it took two experiences with non-refundable hotel reservations to come to the realization that the unimaginable can actually happen. As a result, I have never again succumbed to the lure of the lower prices that come with “non-refundable.”
As to travel insurance, the maxim, “ read the fine print,” is really good advice. I was once about to purchase some along with the medical transport coverage I always get; but when I read the conditions, it turned out that “trip cancellation for any reason” didn’t actually mean what the words seemed to say. Excluded were a number of circumstances, like civil insurrection, terrorism, and pandemics. So, buying trip insurance may not be useful.
So, back to the OP’s query, the choice of non-refundable reservations shifted the risk from the hotel to him. His choice. While some people have been pleasantly surprised to find their prepaid funds generously refunded, many have not. Live and learn.

I admit what I am about to say may not sound kind, but tdw, I think we all get it by now that you don’t understand the reasoning behind these questions. You might have more peace of mind if you just skipped over these threads.

After all of the bashing of the OP,me here is the rest of the Story.
1 Air France cancelled all flights including mine to Paris and gave me a Voucher.
2 I paid the hotel $3200 and had no way to Get there as Americans were not allowed to travel within the EU
3 The Pandemic is a worldwide event which travelers and vendors have no control over.
4 For my 6 weeks trip to France,Spain and Austria I got refunds or Vouchers from all other lodgings.
Mike

Mike,

Sorry for the bashing but it has been a long year with this topic cover dozens of times- so answers now tend to get a little more abrupt.

Let me explain the reality of the situation; with a bit of tough love.

The Golden Rule of non-refundable (tour tickets, hotels, etc) is that you get a discount in exchange for one simple legal principal: you are and have become the insurer. Period. If anything fails it is your loss and your loss alone. Period. No playground do-overs.

1. Air France under US law (Dept of Trans Regs) owed you a cash refund for the cancelled flight and not a voucher. US carriers got huge sums of $$ from the US Govt, foreign carriers not so much. When there is no cash there is simply no cash.

EDITED

2. You self insured, you carried the risk. The fact you couldn’t get into the country is totally irrelevant. You are trying to use that fact (cannot get in) to shift the threat of loss potential from you to the hotel but it doesn’t work like that. France did pass emergency Covid regs calling for vouchers for 18 months (and cash refunds thereafter for refundable (???) reservations). Despite the nonrefundable aspect of your reservation the hotel appears to have given you a 9 month voucher (check with a French lawyer or consumer advocate for the exact legal impacts of your reservation and the Covid legislation in that country and your entitlement to the full 18 month voucher that should run into 2022. Sadly your reservation dates could also be an issue— before September 15th?

1. Yes, it is a world wide event. Respectfully, so what? Again, you want to invent an excuse to shift the risk of loss from you to them. The Pandemic doesn’t reset basic rules of Contract law. You contracted for a reduced rate in exchange for accepting ALL the risk of loss. Nothing here changes that. Equity, Fairness??? So you want to be whole, not lose a penny, and they lose. Not really equity or fair is it. 550,000 in the US lost (their lives), millions lost jobs, tens of thousands lost their homes or rented home, life savings of millions in the US gone, careers lost and destroyed. And yes, you lost also; $3200. A lot, but at the same time very small in comparison to the losses of millions of others.

   1. Great. Your losses are overall small. The current hotel did give you a voucher. A voucher that they can afford to carry on the books for only so long. The pandemic outlasted everyone’s predictions. It totally sucks. But just because one business can afford a cash refund or longer voucher period doesn’t mean everyone can. They all do not share the same bank account. When I was 13 (end of the 1960s) I had a friend whose dad subscribed to Playboy and gave him the issues when he was done reading them. My mom didn’t give a damn what his parents did, that situation wasn’t gonna fly with my mother and I wasn’t getting a subscription to Playboy for Christmas. I cried unfair, she didn’t care. What other hotels, countries did is totally irrelevant. Sorry.

Your alive. You lived through Covid. Gotten your “shots”? If so, your a huge winner. Don’t sweat the small stuff. The families of over 2.7 million people across the world would have loved to have only suffered your loss. And I bet with a trip of that length you are retired. You probably didn’t lose your job last year. But did you get Covid relief checks? For what? The job and income your didn’t lose. Thank Uncle Sam- US citizens covered your lost hotel expense. Your whole.

Game plan. Write the hotel. Nicely note the French ban that is preventing your entry in April and cite to the French voucher statute that requires 18 month vouchers. Ask to make a reservation for dates within 18 months of your original reservation; again citing the actual statute info provided below by Tocard.

Excuse crazy paragraph numbering above . Forum doing that and won’t edit to correct.

In reference to covid related cancellations, in March of 2020, the French government issued an Ordonnance n° 2020-315 which basically states that cancellations between 1 March and 15 September 2020 for hotel accommodations were to be held as credit towards a future stay for a period of 18 months. Any unused portions of the credit were to be returned to the client at the end of the 18-month period. The law is better explained here.

Without knowing more, Mike should have been offered a voucher for a future stay of up to 18 months. The hotel's offer of credit until 30 April 2021 does not seem consistent with French law. If I were Mike, I should contact the hotel and ask that the credit be extended for a total period of 18 months. This would allow more time to use the credit.

There is a consumer group in France, CLCV, that can help with covid related refunds, but there is an annual fee of 48€ to join, and I am not sure that they can help in English, but you have the reference.

I was confounding the non-refundable and that law, but Tocard is correct. Furthermore, since it's 18 months, 18 months from his September 2020 reservation would be March 2022. Is it 18 months from cancellation or original dates of stay?

That is a big chunk of change. Definitely worth pursuing Tocard's lead and use writing, not phoning.

Thank you Tocard and Bets. I wrote while tired and just screwed up basic math (I’ve been locked up too long, what year is it?) . If the hotel provides a voucher for the entire 18 months Mike should be good until Feb-Marchish 2022, ( a nice early spring trip). I have amended my post above. I do not know if the statute has been modified or extended since it was enacted as it has a final coverage date ending on 15 September 2020.

The statute also appears to be written for “packages” which include more then just a hotel but it would seem to appear to hotels (accommodations) as solo items. And it appears to apply to refund ability of those packages vs a prepaid non-refundable hotel (But the regulation is not clear, use that to your advantage)....but I’m all in favor of pursuit of the full 18 month voucher— let the hotel prove up non-application if they believe they are exempt.

Mike- what were your original reservation dates? Was your check-in date after September 15th?

Mike - The pertinent information is that which qualifies you for a credit or voucher under French law. It would be helpful to know:

• How and when you made the reservation - did you deal directly with the hotel?
• What was the date of the reservation?
• Who made the cancellation and when? With the cancellation, the hotel is supposed to offer to you either a new stay date or a voucher valid for 18 months. I remember this timeframe being from the stay date, not the cancellation date. Any unused portions of the voucher were to be refunded to you. There may be a question about this in the case of a nonrefundable deposit, but the law makes no specific exception to a no refund policy.
• What was the basis of the April 30, 2021 date in reference to your reservation? This seems odd, why April 30th?

Information about cancelled airlines (no airline flying from the USA to CDG has suspended all service) or Americans not being allowed into France is not material. A favorable resolution for you will be realized in reference to the French law concerning Covid cancellations, but you need to supply additional information.

Edit: Mike - are you sure that the extension offer from the hotel was not for 30 April 2022? That date would likely conform to the 18 month voucher period requirement.

I would like to thank Tocard for the Information that he has provided,it could be useful to others.I have an Email trail that clearly States that the end date for the hotel is April 30,2021.I have stayed at this hotels Properties in Budapest,Vienna 2,Munich and Paris every year since 2010.Great Hotel and Location with great views of Eiffel and Metro 100 feet from front door,sad that this happened.I am retired and was a lucky recipient of Covid giftet to me by a neighbor with my wife spending eight days in the Hospital,I was confined at home.
Mike

I’m so sorry about your wife’s hospitalization and your tangle with the disease, too. This Paris stay is important especially after that.

Your additional info helps. So it’s an international organization, which is very different from a small, family run hotel. And, you are a regular, returning customer to their properties.
( And you’ve been a regular here, too, over the years.)

The Christopher Elliott website has instructions on how to contact the executives of large organizations, going beyond the customer service people whose hands are often tied. Here is a link. https://www.elliott.org/answers/how-to-fix-your-own-consumer-problem/
This route has been successful for many.

And here is a list of hotel company contacts, in case your group is included. Otherwise, you can ask the Elliott team if they can search the name and contact information of the people running the company, those who have power to override decisions and employee mistakes. https://www.elliott.org/company-contacts/#hotel

Many people have their problems resolved going this route. Sometimes people have to write a few times before being noticed. You have a good case to present.

Please let us know the outcome.