InterContinental Rome opening delayed

[meta]

I received a cancellation email from Intercontinental Rome today for my stay for Early May Bank holiday, several months after everyone else. They are not opening their hotel until much later and they are arguing that covid restrictions prevented them from finishing construction.

I already have plane tickets booked (Lloyds voucher) and it has been nearly 8 months since I booked the hotel. I will be asking them to move me to a comparable property. I’ll let you know how conversation goes.

• This topic was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[djl]

I had a booking at this hotel for the early June bank holiday weekend. The only other vaguely suitable IHG property in Rome was the Indigo St George, but this property had no award availability and IHG were unable to persuade them to offer any more than a very slightly discounted cash rate. I did get 20,000 points compo from IHG for the inconvenience.

[Blair Waldorf Salad]

I managed (months after being cancelled) to rebook at same low points price for Nov 2022. Still not cobfident I’ll get there and it’ll be open/Rome will be open.

[meta]

I have asked them now to move my stay for next year at the same time for the same cost or if they can’t then put me in a hotel in a comparable location give that I have flights booked. Haven’t heard from them yet, but it’s the weekend.

[Peggerz]

I had a booking for March 2022 that went a long time ago. I got fed up with the delays and have moved on.

[meta]

Well, that’s your choice. I am taking this all the way. There is contractual obligation. There are damages in my case and they’ll need to compensate me.

[JDB]

meta wrote:

Well, that’s your choice. I am taking this all the way. There is contractual obligation. There are damages in my case and they’ll need to compensate me.

I’m not challenging your view, but as this is a situation that is cropping up quite a lot at the moment, I am interested to understand what you say the contractual position is and in which jurisdiction any dispute would be resolved.

[meta]

JDB wrote:

meta wrote:

Well, that’s your choice. I am taking this all the way. There is contractual obligation. There are damages in my case and they’ll need to compensate me.

I’m not challenging your view, but as this is a situation that is cropping up quite a lot at the moment, I am interested to understand what you say the contractual position is and in which jurisdiction any dispute would be resolved.

The contract is clear. I booked a hotel, gave them my money in form of points, the hotel/IHG group unilaterally cancels the reservation that I paid for in advance. In the process they lie that the hotel construction couldn’t complete due to covid restrictions due to local laws (no such laws exist in Italy). Not only that, covid has been around for two years and yet they allowed bookings since May last year cash and points. They notify me 8 months later that they are not going to open. less than 4 months before the stay that they are not going to open. They notify many others in September as evidenced everywhere online. Why did they wait 8 months to notify me and 3-4 months for others? It is reasonable that after many months I have started making other travel arrangements around the stay.

In regards to jurisdiction, with the help of a lawyer friend who lives in Georgia, I intend to bring it in small claims court under Georgia law as that’s where IHG Rewards is based. In Georgia, like in the UK, it’s all done online anyway. I might also bring it in the UK and Italy if necessary.

In fact, it’s interesting that when you book reward nights the contract does not stipulate anything about them cancelling on you. IHG Rewards T&C also don’t mention anything. Only the deadlines for guests cancelling. This means that they will have to cover damages.

Several options in regards to damages – they can either cover the difference between a new hotel and my stay keeping the points, or they can cover the cost of flight cancellation / in form of points would be fine too.

They know it, that’s why the offered to one of the posters above 20k points. However, in my case, I’d need at least double that to let it go.

• This reply was modified 54 years, 4 months ago by .

[JDB]

Thank you @Meta – that’s interesting. It’s odd that hotel reservations terms are generally quite vague.

[DZOO]

meta wrote:

I received a cancellation email from Intercontinental Rome today for my stay for Early May Bank holiday, several months after everyone else.

I am also booked for the same Bank Holiday (and received the cancellation email on Friday) so interested to know how this all goes! Have requested that the points are not automatically refunded per the email and I can move to new dates but no response to date given, as you say, it’s the weekend – I’m not hopeful.

[avstar]

I got the email last week too, but they havent yet cancelled the reservations for that early may bank holiday weekend. Has this happened for other people?

[meta]

Yes, the reservations have not been cancelled and points have not been refunded. This is to be expected as they can’t do it without your consent. So they need you to agree something. Btw, I received my first pushback this morning – some copy paste non-sense.

[DZOO]

meta wrote:

Yes, the reservations have not been cancelled and points have not been refunded. This is to be expected as they can’t do it without your consent. So they need you to agree something. Btw, I received my first pushback this morning – some copy paste non-sense.

I just received a further automated “reservation cancellation” email – this time it has actually been cancelled (not showing in app) and the points have been refunded. No response to my initial pushback so far…

[meta]

As an update, I have managed now to receive a somewhat satisfactory compensation. They wouldn’t assist with rebooking or putting me elsewhere, but they have given me a compensation in form of points for 1 night for the date I had in mind (73k). I had two nights booked and could have probably pushed for more, but it took a lot of back and forth to get to this point and I don’t want to spend more time fighting this. It covers more than the reward flight change fee and I can use the points elsewhere as well.

[Tracy]

I have had 2 nights cancelled in May 2022. I have tried numerous tacks to try to get the nights rebooked at the same rate for later in the year but to no avail. They have just cancelled the nights and returned my 40k*2 points. Is there something else I should be pushing for?

[meta]

Did you book flights or anything else around the stay? Use that as a leverage to extract points as compensation from them. That is as far as I could get them to agree. I mildly threatened them with legal action as well. They broke the contract unilaterally, so they should cover damages which were real for me.