Paris Hotel cancellation using Booking.com

They didn’t say why I assume... they just said ‘Cancelled’ and that’s it? We’ve used Booking 100s of times and have never had that happen. Sorry it happened to you.

Actually, I just looked back and both emails were from Booking.com. The first said the hotel was no longer able to accommodate me, The second said my cancellation was free (kind of as if I was the one that cancelled)

It's not a huge deal. I'm glad it happened sooner than later. It's just quite strange.

jules, you’re right, it is quite strange.

Jules

Do you ever use the Accor brand? I have their app on my phone. It lets me search for low cost to more expensive places. There are several IBIS in the Montparnasse area. I’ve never been cancelled by them.

Hi Sandra, I'm actually in Accor's loyalty program. I do use them on occasion. They are usually quite budget friendly and reliable in terms of cleanliness, etc. I did find a Campanile property close to the train station and they are a bit cheaper. All I need is a place we can put our jet lagged heads until we head out to Bordeaux the next morning on the train. In some ways I'd rather use a European chain like Accor and Campanile than a Best Western, anyway.
@dplaunderville, its still on Booking! The only thing I think may have happened is they don't have the bed configuration that I booked. My husband is tall, we don't sleep in a fullsize bed! Or else, Best Western just doesn't like us. ;)

EDITED--Just looked at booking.com. The same room I booked is listed as having 7 rooms available!

There’s a Mercury near the train station.

One of the things I like about this group is they will let you pay 25E extra and you can get into your room by 0900 - great after an international flight. I sleep for about an hour then have a good portion of the day to explore or have a nice lunch.
Good luck finding something to fit your needs.

That cancellation out of the blue, where rooms are still being offered, is bizarre. It smacks of unfair business practices, and a hotel (or Booking.com) that’s not honoring the reservation they accepted, even after they established a lodging contract with you.

But you weren’t charged for this? At least they didn’t grab your money and leave you without a room.

It sounds like this was a place and a deal you really didn’t want in the end, and you’ll be better off at the other place in any event. Maybe it’ll have all worked out, and the first place would’ve given you additional problems and headaches if you wound up getting stuck there with your initial reservation. Possible serendipity, even though you first had to experience getting dumped.

Hotels sometimes can't honor a reservation for numerous reasons.

They sometimes overbook expecting cancellations and those cancellations don't occur.

If a chain, high ranking members of their loyalty program are guaranteed a room if requested at least 48 hours in advance. (I've had to do this once when a hotel was fully booked. They said they would have a room for me and the last arriving guest who booked through Expedia would be "walked." )

A group may have booked after you did and they need that room for the group. (But in your case other rooms are available.)

Did you book a one or two bedded room? They may have needed your room type and rather than contacting you about a different room type, since you used booking.com rather than booking directly, they just canceled. Are the available rooms the same type as you booked?

I just looked at the Best Western Montparnasse web site and it comes up NO ROOMS AVAILABLE period without any question about booking dates. I would wager that it is currently closed due to the pandemic with no schedule for reopening.

I think there is just a lot of volatility in the hotel sector. Some places have been closed for nearly 18 months and may never re-open.

@ Irv. My date is end of August. I just went back to Best Western Bretagne Montparnasse and it is possible to book the night with the same bed configuration. In the top right corner, where it says book, when I click, they show by calendar month that they plan to be open during my dates. They do have June blocked off. It is also possible to book the room on booking .com. They show 7 of the rooms available. I can understand if the hotel is having trouble with their systems due to COVID and related. But, when I booked the room, the hotel responded directly to me by email to several questions. Also, I don't know why booking.com continues to have the room available. I'm good, I have a room at a different hotel. It does reaffirm my desire to book directly with hotels.

Jules, you may find this interesting. It's about a hotel in Hawaii doing what happened to you.

https://viewfromthewing.com/hotel-cancels-all-summer-reservations-to-take-more-lucrative-bookings-hilton-shrugs/

New owners?
Not a prepaid booking (as if anyone wants one of those now)?
Even an algorithm could have canceled the booking as demand increases and prices go up.

Based on the article Frank II has shared, this could be the new world we live in.
And finally, hotels have no guarantee that travelers won’t change their minds and cancel the reservation close to the date, either.

Interesting heads up for all of us. I hope you find a suitable substitute quickly.

I agree with what Cyn said about serendipity.

Also, as someone who stays at Best Westerns quite a bit, I do feel like the chain tends to have hotels that lose the branding a lot. So perhaps the hotel is in the process of becoming independent and can no longer honor reservations made under the BW name?

There's a whole lot of speculation here. Why not just ask both Booking and the hotel directly what happened? They will probably point fingers at the other, but you should be able to read between the lines. Booking doesn't have any incentive to cancel a booking that it makes a commission on - it doesn't make sense financially and it doesn't help their reputation. I have seen hotels and Booking get into contract spats that could have temporary negative result on some limited number of rooms booked, but there could be a number of not nefarious reasons why this happened and you could have reached out to either party to get a concession for your trouble. For what it's worth, I used Booking some 50+ times and had a good experience. When "stuff" happens, usually things can be worked out or made right if you engage the relevant parties directly.

Yesterday when I received the cancellation, I emailed the property and asked them why they cancelled. I wondered if it was something to do with Best Western corp. because when I originally was trying to make the reservation, I couldn't get the specific property to come up on the Best Western Site which is why I ended up on booking.com.

I just received a response from Best Western Bretagne. They said booking.com cancelled the reservation. They asked me to resend the original confirmation and they will honor the reservation at the rate originally quoted. Right now Bretagne is closed to business which may be where the confusion came from.

Because its closer to the train station and has the bed configuration we like, I'm going to rebook with Bretagne and cancel Campanile.

I don't think I've ever canceled an inn/hotel in Europe. It makes me feel bad, especially now with the stress that COVID places on hotels. It also gives me pause in that I was frustrated that a hotel would cancel on me while I've made sure all my reservations can be cancelled. In any case, I'm sure Campanile will be able to sell a room in Paris at the end of August.

I always confirm my inns a week or so before I leave home also telling them an expected arrival time. I think this is going to be especially important this year, because there probably is a greater chance that a property might be closed either temporarily or permanently.