Hotel Shenanigans

It seems like you're in a pretty good position, with your confirmation email confirming your rate and the cancellation policy for your booking. You've probably already checked your credit card transactions to see whether the charge has actually gone through or is just "pending." Charges on my credit card show as "pending" when the hotel guarantees the reservation to my credit card (for late arrival or to charge cancellation fees, per their policies) but doesn't actually charge the amount.

I have seen these charges written in the small print, which many people miss when they book a room. If you can cancel via website (which, I'm sure you can given this is a giant chain), then don't spend precious time on the phone trying to straighten this out. That's the whole point of online booking - cancelling should be easy. Hotels do run a check on a card, but it should show up as "pending" and a smaller amount than actual.

Thank you Agnes. They full-on charged my credit card. I don’t want to cancel the reservation just yet as I’m hoping this will all die down by mid-June and we will still be able to go.

They should have no way charged my card now, especially at the full standard rate in which I booked.

Some credit card web sites make it hard to tell the difference between pending and charged amounts. When your actual monthly billing statement comes, with total amount due for this month, that charge probably will not appear. If it does, and you did not agree to pre-payment, then you might proceed to take steps. Or you might decide that you still want to keep the reservation and only cancel and request a refund when/if necessary.