Hilton Changing Global Cancellation Policy

By: Ben Schlappig

Published: November 10, 2014

17 comments

Several weeks ago, Marriott announced that they would be updating their global hotel cancellation policy as of January 1, 2015.

Through this new policy, guests will have until 11:59PM the day before arrival to cancel their reservations without penalty. This was both good and bad news, depending on the property.

Some hotels previously required you to cancel by check-in time the day before arrival, while other hotels let you cancel all the way through the day of arrival. About three quarters of Marriott properties fit in the latter category, so overall it’s a negative change, in my opinion.

Not surprisingly, Marriott isn’t the only hotel chain to make such a change. Hilton will also be updating their global cancellation policy as of January 1, 2015. Here’s what HHonors Representative posted on FlyerTalk:

I wanted to share a quick update with you. We are updating our reservation cancellation guidelines to a minimum of 11:59 p.m. local hotel time the day prior to arrival, and you will be required to provide a credit card at the time of booking.

These changes will go into effect on January 1, 2015. As always, cancellation policies may still vary depending on the rate or dates of your reservation, and some hotels have more restrictive policies in place, so please refer to your individual confirmations to verify their policy.

We’re making this change so that we can provide you with a more consistent booking process and make more rooms available for when you need last minute travel accommodations.

What’s interesting here is that unlike with Marriott, Hilton isn’t trying to create a new standard cancellation policy, but rather 11:59PM day before arrival will be the minimum cancellation policy. In other words, presumably hotels that made you cancel 24 hours before arrival aren’t changing their policy, but rather only hotels allowing cancellations day of arrival will be changing their policy.

Here’s the current cancellation policy for many properties:

Hilton-Cancellation-Policy-1

While here’s the new cancellation policy for those properties:

Hilton-Cancellation-Policy-2

Bottom line

As much as I’d like to hold this against Hilton and Marriott, I really can’t blame them. I went to a restaurant last night with my parents where we couldn’t get a table, since they were totally booked for the night. So we had dinner at the bar. Throughout our dinner there were at least a dozen empty tables, I guess from no shows.

The same thing is true of hotels. Hotels have a better shot at reselling rooms if they know who’s not going to show the night before, as opposed to only the afternoon of. Yes, they can oversell the hotel to account for the cancellation and no show rate, but that’s also a liability for them, since at times no shows can be difficult to predict, especially for airport hotels.

Of course I’m not happy about this change as a consumer, but I do see the hotels’ perspective on this as well.

Lastly, since Hilton seems so intent on following Marriott’s lead, here’s to hoping they’re also quick to add free Wi-Fi for all Honors members… 😉

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colleen Guest

November 10, 2014, 10:50 pm

From the dinosaur wing of readers... What happened to the day when applying a credit card to a reservation was optional, and totally in protection of the customer to guarantee the room past 6pm? The room was on "courtesy hold" if not CC-guaranteed, and would auto-cancel at 4pm or 6pm. Not bringing it up to whine (or just to wax nostalgic), but just to observe that the CC guarantee has become the norm, especially with on-line bookings. At the same time, the forfeitable "late arrival" guarantee (originally well-intentioned) has now become a de facto deposit which belongs to the hotel and not the customer. The guarantee has become for the hotel's revenue, and not the customer's late arrival. Because of technology, I never noticed it happening. I think they had it right to begin with. Don't charge the "deposit" and release the room at a reasonable hour. Otherwise, the "double revenue" option is obvious and customer-unfriendly. Leave a "no-deposit" option and let the customer choose.

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Ryan Guest

November 10, 2014, 9:18 pm

@ Lucky -- most hotels that I've seen offer a lower rate that is non-flexible and a higher rate that is flexible. When I book the non-flexibile rate (which I always do), I am buying the right to change my plans at the last minute. In other words, the hotel has been compensated for my right to cancel.

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matthewsf Guest

November 10, 2014, 8:14 pm

The main question that I want to ask/address is what will the rates look like to the additional room(s) that are now cancelled a day before? Since it is presumably putting more available inventory out there (in advance), will hotels be inclined to make them available/price them at low, 'last minute' rates? Or will they be marked at a higher rate? Just curious.

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Nick Guest

November 10, 2014, 4:11 pm

Some of this is obviously intended to mitigate those who use Priceline, Hotel Tonight, or some other site to obtain a cheaper room on the day of travel when they know they don't need to cancel, and use the reserved room as a contingency in case nothing is available cheaper at the last minute. It also lets hotels decide if they want to cut same-day rates to ensnare a couple of last minute reservations, and not worry about people rebooking. The people this will really hurt are not business travelers, but leisure travelers on driving vacations. Sure, some of these people double-book - maybe one hotel 250 miles away and one hotel 350 miles away. But many do not. Now one needs to lock in their travel the day before, without knowing for sure how they'll feel the next morning or how the weather turned out.

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Lisa Guest

November 10, 2014, 2:24 pm

Lucky, unless you have access to numbers to actually indicate that, you're just guessing. You assume they have good reason for this policy, and that they have rooms going empty. But I see no reason to assume that. They are trying to make more money at the expense of their customers. And yes, I can blame them. There is what is legal and what is right. I often get angry about terrible things that are nonetheless legal, because I think they are immoral or unethical, so your counterpoint that "hey, it's legal, so it's okay" just doesn't work for me.

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