Wife and I were supposed to go to the ritz in Dana point California tomorrow and ended up both getting sick.

Cancellation policy for the room is pretty expensive. We called and got transferred to their corporate office and they basically said no luck.

Anybody have any strategies for this? Was hoping to talk to a manager at the property and maybe try to just change the dates so they aren't losing money, but maybe I'm just naive to the world of cancelling hotel rooms.

Any help is appreciated.

Changing dates with manager is probably best option
Go to urgent care and get note from medical professionals saying no travel allowed and then take that up with manager/corporate office
Or MAAAAYBE they'd be willing to give you rewards pints towards future stay. They'll likely make out on that but you'll get something

That's a great property!

Good luck. If you booked through a travel agent, you might have a shot.

Otherwise, I think the best strategy is to try to see if they can change your dates but this close in, that's probably unlikely.

Do you have status? If so, that makes it a lot easier. Either way, best shot is to call the property directly, explain the situation, and ask to push the dates back by a few days (even if you have no intention to actually go). If they do that, now you are within the cancellation window and then you can cancel via the website/app.

When I have to do this last minute, I always say that my flight got cancelled but I am lifetime titanium so I've never had an issue. However, this is strictly up to how full the property is and at the manager's discretion. Let us know how it goes. Good luck!

Big Al 1992 said:

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That's a great property!

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My good friend has a house just down the beach from the Ritz. It's a really nice area. Truly Pizza is a good spot if you head into town for a casual dinner.

Just going to make a plug for the future that this is why you buy travel insurance. You never know what is going to happen. I have people decline it all the time. I get it can be expensive, but its better than being out $10k+.

On a side note, not sure what type of credit card you paid for it with, some of those have insurance (but it isn't usually high coverage)

I've had clients the day or two before travel:
Pour hot bacon grease on their foot (AND sent me a photo )
Death in the family
Get COVID
Break-up (that one wouldn't be covered unless they had cancel for any reason).

During travel I've had people:
Break a foot
Have some kind of seizure/heart issues and have to be hospitalized in Alaska
Get sick in Europe
Random getting sick at resorts
Lost luggage

Insurance helps with all of these things. I used my annual policy last year when I was in California and my dad passed away. They paid the difference for the flight home and my airport hotel. Main thing with annual plans is they do not provide a high level of cancellation coverage.

I have never used travel insurance before. Do you have one you'd recommend I look at for future trips? After Covid I try to only book refundable flights / hotels, but this time that wasn't an option. Would certainly be interested in researching insurance for future bookings.

I sell RoamRight mostly, but Allianz, Travel Insured, Travel Guard are all good ones. If you need help, you can message me. My cost is the same as if you go directly to them.

The united infinity chase card has good travel insurance as part of it. If a hotel charges you for a service that you didn't receive there is always the contesting the charge on your credit card with providing what you told them, no service etc. Not sure how this works but a national park lodge charged our card once after telling us a reservation was properly cancelled and we contested it successfully.

T dizl televizl said:

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Feel kinda ****ty about it, but also tried to reason with them and they wouldn't be flexible at all.

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Do you appreciate it when people negotiate out of agreements for thousands of dollars that they should have understood the rules for?

Glad it worked for you, but it's also 100% your fault for not understanding what you agreed to.

dylan said:

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The united infinity chase card has good travel insurance as part of it. If a hotel charges you for a service that you didn't receive there is always the contesting the charge on your credit card with providing what you told them, no service etc. Not sure how this works but a national park lodge charged our card once after telling us a reservation was properly cancelled and we contested it successfully.

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Contesting your charges that you agree to is not a good thing to do. And depending how you book, you could be putting someone else on the hook for the charges.

I had someone who was supposed to attend a destination wedding. She declined insurance 3 times. She canceled cause a hurricane was supposed to come. I actually got her a future travel credit, even though she shouldn't have. She filed a chargeback. That held up over $2k of my money for over a month. Had she won it, I would have been charged that money, not my supplier. Thank goodness I had enough documentation to win. But it would have hurt me financially.