In checking hotel rates (direct), I’ve found several with payment in full and non refundable. Is this common in Paris? It’s not even a cheap rate. Any way around this?
Update 1/13: The hotel I want to book for September told me that the flexible rate would be available 6 months out. Thanks for your responses.
This isn't just a Paris thing. Usually hotels also give you a more expensive option that is refundable. What I'm noticing now is also a sliding scale. The rate being more reasonable with a 2 week in advance cancellation, and a higher rate for a 48 hour cancellation.
Assuming you have the proper travel insurance or a credit card that will reimburse nonrefundable portions of your trip, I wouldn't hesitate to prepay reservations IF the savings is worthwhile.
As mentioned by KD, most hotels give you an option of nonrefundable prepay and a higher rate for less restrictive bookings.
Nonrefundable rates are risky as you can never be absolutely certain in life that you’ll be able to keep to the reservation. And— except for coverage by travel insurance—you can say goodbye to any recourse for a refund once you make a nonrefundable reservation.
Nonrefundable hotel reservations for Paris hotels are not the standard practice. They offer a small savings that will be a complete loss in the event you can’t make it to Paris due to an unforeseen illness, injury, family emergency or trip interruption.
And, believe me, any one of those things can happen to anyone.
I almost always go for free cancellation on hotel reservations. There are rare occasions when I will prepay, but those are few and far between.
I do both, but it depends. If the price is so good that I would be crazy not to take the non-refundable option, I make sure and pay for it with my Chase Sapphire Preferred card or Delta AMEX. That way, in the event I can't make it for health reasons or family emergency (and that's usually the only reason I can think of that I would use it), then I can get that money refunded.
I agree with the others that there are usually several rates listed BUT….
This week when booking a stay in Paris I went to the web site of one of my dependable hotels. They had availability so I started booking their special 3-night rate which is a bit cheaper. I’ve done this often at this hotel. This time I realized it said pay now when I was ready to click so backed out and reread their policies on the 3-night stay and see they are now billing for the first night immediately and it’s non-refundable. Uh, no thanks. I can go to another hotel 1/2 a block away and get fully refundable up to 48 hours out.
I was glad I was not distracted or in a hurry when booking!
If there is a hotel you want to stay at but it only shows a non-refundable rate you can consider emailing and asking them if there is a refundable rate.
I was glad I was not distracted or in a hurry when booking!
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Another reason I try to avoid non-refundable online hotel reservations is that it seems increasingly easy to make an error such as not seeing the all fine print, not noticing that the dates changed from what you initially put in, or you unintentionally got onto a third party site. I want to be able to review the confirmation before paying anything.
I have been looking on booking.com for Paris this year, and noticed that compared to last year , more and more hotels are stating only non-refundable rates.
Also on hotel’s own websites this year.
It’s quite a change.
I like to have the option to cancel if necessary, but I’m thinking this change may be because people book a few places with a cancellation policy, then pick one at the last minute, cancelling the others.
Perhaps hotel owners have become weary of this.
You see people on line bragging about booking hotels as back up to apartments or booking more than one hotel with plans to cancel last miinute -- I think this trend may be a consequence.
We have not yet ever in decades of travel cancelled a hotel reservation except once when I broke my elbow and had surgery and our non-refundable hotel was in St. Malo which we had to drop from the itinerary. I wrote them a note in google translate French and they did refund but we were prepared to lose it if it came to that. My travel insurance would have covered it I suppose. (it was literally the first trip we ever had travel insurance and it covered the surgery and subsquent rehab in Paris)
