Munich hotel-covid

is your stay in the future or in the past?

is your hotel reservation a non-refundable rate or a fully refundable rate?

Rate was nonrefundable of course and reservation in September both conditions of which never bothered the other 7 hotels particularly when told we couldnt literally get there.

Frustrating, when others have been magnanimous, but generosity can only go so far, I guess, when your business is falling out from under your feet. There are risks to booking nonrefundable lodgings.
Consider your spleen vented, which seems to have been the objective.
Safe future travels.

Isn't this a recommended Hotel in the Rick Steve's travel guide book? If it is, I think Rick's company should send a note to them and complain for you. After all, I can only imagine how much business Rick has generated due to those guidebooks. Just my two cents.

Not Rick’s place nor business to argue on your behalf and argue what? Sorry no sympathy here. When you book nonrefundable that is what you get- nonrefundable. Simplistic concept. I book the cheapest rate, the nonrefundable rate, and the room is mine. No cancellation. Your flight was cancelled, so what, that is not the fault of the hotel. It is all part of the risk. You take the cheap nonrefundable rate and you assume ALL the risk. So your asking the hotel to give you their money and if they do not they are doing something bad and are to be critiqued?

I certainly understand your frustration with spending money on a service you cannot use, but I'm with those who feel a non-refundable rate is... well... non-refundable. It is certainly kind for hotels to refund them in these unusual times, but it is not unkind for them not to refund them.

I will say thanks for bringing Eden Hotel Wolff to my attention. It looks great (very German!) and has a nice location near the Hbf for an early morning escape to the airport. I will stay there next time I'm in Munich!

We had “non-refundable “ reservations at the Platlz for 12 days beginning this week. They refunded the entire amount. Those kind of actions make a huge difference when rescheduling trips. We will stay at the Platlz regardless of cost.

I booked a flight from San Francisco to Paris on March 1, 2020. It took off and landed back in the U.S. a week later with no issues. If I had booked it for two weeks later, it would have been cancelled. The tickets were dirt cheap and non-refundable.

Not to get into the "I told you so" mode or to make light of your misfortune, the words "non-refundable" generally mean that. When I booked hotels in Naples and Sorrento last year, I chose the non-refundable options because I got the benefit of cheaper rooms. Sometimes you are lucky and sometimes not.

You didn't say when you booked the Munich reservation. Was it before COVID raised its ugly face? If so, when did you try to cancel the hotel? Non-refundable fares/rooms are a gamble. If you are paying full freight, the reservations usually have a provision for cancellation or rescheduling. Consider yourself fortunate that the other 7 hotels decided to refund you the money you paid. One out of seven is pretty good odds, considering.

Too bad, so sad, but thems the breaks when you book a non refundable reservation. Why should you complain because the hotel abides by the contract you agreed to at the time of booking? Next time consider booking a refundable rate, or one that allows cancellation up to a certain point before.

It’s really getting old...these stories of hotels following their documented cancellation policies and the people coming here to complain. Just because 1 of your hotels decided to give you leniency on your cancellation doesn’t mean the other hotel that’s following their written policy is being mean to you.

Move on.

We had “non-refundable “ reservations at the Platlz for 12 days
beginning this week. They refunded the entire amount. Those kind of
actions make a huge difference when rescheduling trips. We will stay
at the Platlz regardless of cost.

hert5201, you were very fortunate. If the hotel's stated policy is no refunds on non-refundable bookings, and they stick to it, that shouldn't reflect negatively on their business. We've seen other posters who were denied refunds on the same sort of bookings and blamed the accommodation, as if it was the management not sticking to the terms of reservation contract instead of expecting to honor the same terms themselves. If the hotel is open and doing business, it's not their fault if you can't get there.

We never would have taken the risk of a non-refundable reservation for a 12-night stay! COVID aside, all sorts of unexpected snags could throw a wrench in the plan!

brondraganov, hotels and B&Bs, which were shut for months, are already stretched to the limit having to refund customers who made refundable bookings for higher tariffs or (in most cases) had booked stays during the time those accommodations were closed. Some may be financially able to compensate their other customers but some may not. Moral of the story? Expect what you signed on the line for. That can be an expensive lesson learned, unfortunately.

If you've not done so, you might try to negotiate a voucher good for a future stay? Again, they're not in the wrong if they refuse but they may respond positively to a kindly query. Good luck!

The total refund was surprising; however, the reservation was made last November which could have of been a factor. I certainly would not expect a complete refund with the current circumstances and our next trip plan will certainly have a "refundable" hotel. What really caught my attention was all the negativity this post generated. Although the "too bad, so sad " and "a contract is a contract" comments make for good sound bites, they are really not good hotel business practices. Consider another, more thoughtful, prospective. The German government (by virtue of an American travel ban) effectively cancelled American hotel reservations and by interpolation the hotel cancelled reservations. American tourists had no input and are at the mercy of the hotel. In this view, a refund refusal amounts to an unofficial government sanctioned confiscation of American wealth. I know this will generate some nasty responses, but it has clearly been an eventuality for American refunds. Just some food for thought. Regardless, we love Europe and are looking forward to next Summer and hopefully an effective vaccine. Safe travels.

Well said about the negativity, "hert5201"!

Instead of insisting that non-refundable means non-refundable during a pandemic of a scope that the world has never before experienced (transatlantic leisure travel was uncommon in 1918, and non-existent in the mid-1300s), helpful people might have suggested checking consumer, contract-related, or travel-related laws and regulations for Germany or for the Bavarian state. Who knows what those definitive sources say? I haven't read them, so I wouldn't be comfortable claiming that a refund is purely discretionary.

We have seen plenty of mandated exceptions, for example, for domestic and international flights involving the US (US DOT regulations, April 3, 2020 enforcement notice: refund required if the airline cancels a flight or significantly changes the schedule, even if the fare was non-refundable) and for hotels in France (French government order 2020-315: voucher required if the hotel cancels a reservation; price capped at original contract price, and refund required if voucher is unused after 18 months; I had previously mistaken this for an EU mandate, but it turned out to be a national mandate instead).

This situation is different in that the hotel is open, but the fact that a government has closed its borders to tourists could, as you point out, carry legal weight.

There's also a tendency to gang up on new posters who are concerned about refunds from specific travel providers. A few weeks ago, another person ended up deleting her post about a hotel in Copenhagen, and has not been heard from since. She sent a private message thanking me for listening, which she said was all she had hoped for.

Though "brondraganov" came to us frustrated with a specific hotel in Munich, they might have interesting trip reports, location intelligence, and travel advice to contribute. Each of us, by the way we choose to respond, can either discourage new people from coming back, or welcome them to return and enrich this online community.

Hello, I had a reservation at that very hotel for April of this year. They were refusing me also after a couple of emails. I read on trip advisor, at that time, that the hotels had to refund money paid, irregardless of prepaid or not, if the stay was for a vacation/holiday instead of business travel. I wrote them that, and they refunded my money within five days. Good luck with it.

I would like to give gltj1 a shout out for providing a simple non-devisive solution for the Op's complaint. In an effort to stop the spread of the Coronavirus in it's early stage, the German government decreed that all hotels be closed to non-business travelers. I don't know when (or if) this regulation was lifted. But assuming it was in effect when the OP's flight was cancelled, this should be enough to get a refund from the hotel since the hotel could not legally provide the service paid for at that time. If this is not enough to budge the hotel, and assuming you used a credit card to pre-pay the hotel, contact the credit card company and explain the situation to them. Include any correspondence with the hotel . Tell the CC that you wish to file a "dispute" over the hotel charges since the hotel "could not legally provide the services" paid for. Don't threaten to cancel the credit card- that will just put the credit card company on the defensive.

In my earlier traveling days, I once reserved a hotel in Cochem with a confirmed Queen sized bed. When we checked in, we discovered 2 single beds on opposite sides of the room. Of course we returned to the front desk and complained. They said they would "push" the beds together. We replied that was unacceptable and asked to be moved to another room with a real Queen sized bed. They responded that all of the other rooms were taken. Of course that was not true since it was the middle of the afternoon and the hotel and adjoining parking lot was almost empty. We left, they billed my credit card, and Booking.com provided no help. However, my CC company (VISA) got the charges reversed 2 days after I contacted my bank which issued the CC and filed a "dispute".

Good luck, Happy travels, and BE SAFE !!!

Edit- I noticed you had flights on Lufthansa. I hope you didn't have any problem getting a refund from Lufthansa, I didn't. My Non-refundable BC non-stop RT flights between SAN and FRA for Sep were cancelled on 4 July (Email from Lufthansa.). I got through to Lufthansa on 8 July and the full refund from the CC company was in my local bank account on 11 Aug !!! I was afraid I would have to use the "dispute" technique with the CC company and was worried the CC company would be overwhelmed with "disputes" after vwpick "let the cat out of the bag " on June 18. See "Lufthansa refund/rebook" under the Transportation category ...

Thank you Kenneth for the appreciation! I also had to remind another hotel at the Munich airport of that. They finally refunded my money, but it took about seven weeks to get the money credited. I hope brondraganov will get his money back.

Btw, I DO want to go back to Munich and hopefully stay at that hotel. Nuremberg also. Hurry up vaccine!