Hotels.com Change Fees

[kermitman18]

I just made a booking through Hotels.com for one night at AoA to add onto the start of our trip. Like an idiot I completely forgot to mark down my 3 year old and 1 year old on the reservation.

When I called to have them added they told me it would be a $25 change fee PLUS $42 because rate of the room would change. Has anyone ever dealt with this before? I guess I can understand the $25 change fee, but how does adding two young children add $42 to any hotel room ever?

I am thinking about just showing up at AoA and seeing what they say instead of dealing with these crazy fees. I would rather Disney get my money directly if I have to pay any increases.

Thoughts?

 

[bumbershoot]

hotels.com doesn't impose change fees. They might think Disney does.

If your room doesn't fit the number of people as you will have listed, then they might have to change the room, which could change the room rate.

Have you gone through as though you're making a new booking? See what happens?

 

[bumbershoot]

Looking at this...

I can't tell if you have 2 or 3 kids. When I put 2 kids in I get the same room as I did with just 2 adults. When I include a third kid I ONLY get the fancy $399 suite.

Looking at Disney hotels vs offsite hotels, I'm seeing a new cancellation policy. That no matter when you cancel you're getting a $25 fee. That's for the Disney hotels, not for offsite.

They are also showing the ability to buy breakfast for $3 per person on the AOA page.


DH has status with hotels.com and so I've just put in a question/correction through his account, because they are showing cancellation policy differences between the initial WDW resort page and once you get into it (and I checked weekends beyond Memorial Day weekend which is when you seem to be adding this day just in case it was a holiday thing), and they are showing a difference cancellation policy than WDW has. This is unheard of in our heavy use of hotels.com since 2009; I have NEVER seen them impose their own fee or anything different than the actual hotel's policy.


If your room type doesn't change with the addition of the kids and you don't need DME, you can gamble and just add the kids at the resort. They won't get MBs, though, until they are added, and the MBs they get will be grey if given at the resort.


I would try to get more info from them, like WHO is charging this fee, and what is causing the change in price. Standard room when I looked was 175 and the next level up when I looked is 399, so that's definitely more than what you're being quoted. Show them (walk them through it) where the "free cancellation" sign changes once you go into the hotel's page, and even show them that WDW doesn't charge a fee for a room-only reservation. Once you get inside of 5 days, of course, then it's a one night fee for a cancellation, but there's no $25 fee from the moment you book it.

 

[kermitman18]

Looking at this...

I can't tell if you have 2 or 3 kids. When I put 2 kids in I get the same room as I did with just 2 adults. When I include a third kid I ONLY get the fancy $399 suite.

Looking at Disney hotels vs offsite hotels, I'm seeing a new cancellation policy. That no matter when you cancel you're getting a $25 fee. That's for the Disney hotels, not for offsite.

They are also showing the ability to buy breakfast for $3 per person on the AOA page.


DH has status with hotels.com and so I've just put in a question/correction through his account, because they are showing cancellation policy differences between the initial WDW resort page and once you get into it (and I checked weekends beyond Memorial Day weekend which is when you seem to be adding this day just in case it was a holiday thing), and they are showing a difference cancellation policy than WDW has. This is unheard of in our heavy use of hotels.com since 2009; I have NEVER seen them impose their own fee or anything different than the actual hotel's policy.


If your room type doesn't change with the addition of the kids and you don't need DME, you can gamble and just add the kids at the resort. They won't get MBs, though, until they are added, and the MBs they get will be grey if given at the resort.


I would try to get more info from them, like WHO is charging this fee, and what is causing the change in price. Standard room when I looked was 175 and the next level up when I looked is 399, so that's definitely more than what you're being quoted. Show them (walk them through it) where the "free cancellation" sign changes once you go into the hotel's page, and even show them that WDW doesn't charge a fee for a room-only reservation. Once you get inside of 5 days, of course, then it's a one night fee for a cancellation, but there's no $25 fee from the moment you book it.

Thank you for all the information and research. I found when I go through the process the price shows $175 regardless of kids or no kids (2 kids by the way) until I get to the actual checkout. At that point that is when I see the price jump from $196 to $238 after all fees. I did call, but as you know many times you get people overseas and there is a bit of a language barrier. I remember the same kind of thing happening on Orbitz about adding the kids after the fact because the system would think you are actually adding two more adults resulting in an extra fee. You would actually have to have Orbitz call the hotel to add them. Just wondering if the same thing is happening here.

I'm not using DME and we have our magic bands for the rest of our stay. We are honestly just staying at AoA for one night so we could get another full 24 hours added to our vacation. We don't even plan on leaving the resort that night since it will be our first time at AoA and we don't get in until later afternoon. I really can't see Disney giving me an issue with a 3 year old and an 8 month old.

 

[bumbershoot]

This truly isn't normal for them. They have never done the thing orbitz does. But since you're covered with transportation and MBs, I doubt you'll have a problem adding them once you're there. Wait, you don't have a king bed room booked do you?

 

[kermitman18]

No. We booked double beds.