Dear Tripped Up,
Last Sept. 26, I booked a ski trip for my family at a Sheraton Vacation Club property in Steamboat Springs, Colo., for December — or so I thought. As soon as I saw the confirmation email, I realized I had actually booked a reservation for that very night, Sept. 26. I assume the dates somehow reset as I navigated the website. I canceled the reservation exactly two minutes after purchase and went about my business, bailing water out of my basement as Hurricane Helene approached our home in the Asheville, N.C., area. We soon lost power for days, and in early October, when I got back online, I found a $560 charge on my credit card for the canceled reservation. I twice called the customer service number listed on the email but could never reach anyone, so I disputed the charge through my credit card, but lost. I have nearly given up. Can you help? Allison, Candler, N.C.
Dear Allison,
Federal rules require airlines to refund any reservations canceled within 24 hours of booking. Does a similar law exist for hotel rooms and vacation rentals?
No. But if it did, it wouldn’t have helped you anyway, because of the nature of your error. The 24-hour cancellation rule for airfare applies only if you book a flight seven or more days in the future; you booked a room for mere hours before your (mistaken) travel dates.
This was a very specific kind of slip-up — and an easy one to make on reservation sites where the arrival date defaults to the present day instead of a date a week later or (very helpfully) a blank field. For those who err in other ways, such as getting the month wrong or confusing Monterey, Calif., with Monterrey, Mexico, most properties offer penalty-free cancellation up to two, seven or even 30 days before check-in, terms that are usually pretty clear on websites. I noticed that the reservation email you received from the Sheraton Steamboat Resort Villas in Steamboat Springs on Sept. 26 said you were free to cancel until Sept. 23, which would have been perfect if you had a time machine.
But should you be punished for such a mistake, especially one you caught, as your documentation shows, in literally two minutes?
It turns out that you would most likely have received a reimbursement if you had called rather than clicked on the cancel option in the reservation email, said Kate Sandossi, a spokeswoman for the Marriott Vacation Clubs, which owns Sheraton Vacation Club (and, by the way, split from the hotel conglomerate Marriott International in 2011). Nevertheless, she said, the company has now granted you a refund.
“While there are some exceptions based on individual locations and special events, guests can cancel a reservation without penalty within 24 hours of booking,” she wrote me in an email. She recommended customers “call the specific resort directly” if they are unable to resolve an issue by calling customer service.
Other major players in hospitality, including BWH Hotels (owners of Best Western) and Expedia Group (whose brands include Hotels.com and Travelocity) said they followed similar, though unwritten, policies.
So where did things go wrong here, aside from your initial error? You thought, not unreasonably, that clicking on a cancellation button would automatically get you your money back. But in these situations, travelers should never assume human logic and corporate-reservation-system logic are the same. Even I, a customer service skeptic, bet that if you had called right away instead of clicking, you would have gotten a refund or at least been able to change the dates to match your December plans.
When you did finally call, about 11 days later, I think you still had a good shot at reversing the error, but here comes your biggest mistake: not waiting long enough on hold. According to phone records you sent me, you waited 14 minutes the first time you called and then 20 minutes the second, and last, time. It pains me to say that in 2025, that isn’t long enough. You should have given them at least 45 minutes or even an hour, during which you could presumably have done chores, taken a walk or, worst-case scenario, caught up on past Tripped Up columns.
Or you could have tried again at a different time. When I tested the same number twice at different times of day, I got through once right away, and once after six minutes on hold. You could have also called the resort directly, as Ms. Sandossi suggested after the fact; that number, which appears on the page where you reserved, also got me through to someone quickly.
Instead, you went the credit card chargeback route. Regular readers know how I feel about that, and here’s why: I read at least a dozen emails a month from the Tripped Up inbox that end with some variation of “Even though I’ve been a loyal cardholder since 2003, the bank sided with the company! I should have known [insert well-known financial institution] and [insert major travel industry player] were in cahoots!”
But the real reason is that the credit card issuers’ investigative powers are limited. Chargebacks work best for very specific and straightforward circumstances, such as shamelessly unauthorized transactions, blatant nondelivery of goods and services (especially useful when a company goes bankrupt), and duplicate charges. Anything more complex is a long shot unless a company is unambiguously in violation of its terms and conditions (and you cite the specific clause) or you get lucky and the company doesn’t respond to the card issuer. Don’t think you’ve won when you initially get a refund; that’s part of the standard process and is very often short-lived.
Let’s end with some good news, at least for readers in Brazil. Unlike the United States and the European Union, domestic travelers in Brazil have a week from booking online to cancel with no penalty. The applies not just to hotels but to Airbnbs, and most other goods and services purchased on the internet.
