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Suppose that person A booked today a hotel room for 3 nights in Dubai to travel in the upcoming February with Hotel Z (room price = 50€). In January, person A changed his mind about the visit and would cancel it. Person B, just realized that next week he has to be in Dubai, so he checked the price and found that room prices are almost 130€.

Is it possible for person A to sell his booking confirmation to person B? (Person A sell it for 70€ and person B can save up to 60€ and if there is hosting web service that carries this service, then it can take 10%)...

Will Hotel Z mind if such a thing happens? I am assuming that hotel policy is not violated by this kind of booking.

And how to make sure of this conduct is acceptable and could work?

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    Because you said that a web service could take 10% makes me believe you are thinking of starting a business not facing this situation as a personal traveler. Is that correct?
    – mkennedy
    Commented Oct 12, 2017 at 16:39
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    You might be able to pull this off as a one-time trade between two people. Turn it into an organized business online, and hotels will likely become much more interested in stopping it, because they don't want people speculating off their rooms.
    – Zach Lipton
    Commented Oct 12, 2017 at 23:25
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    Services like this already exist: roomertravel.com and transfertravel.com.
    – martin.koeberl
    Commented Oct 13, 2017 at 0:07
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    Something not yet covered in the answers (and I don't have an answer either). In many situations there is smallprint preventing you to resell things. Often these are not enfoced if the resell is without profit, but if profits are made in a structural way, you are basically taking away profit from the original seller, and stricter countermeasures can be expected. -- And yes, you are taking away profits, even if it is mainly through opportunity costs because they are prevented from selling the same room twice.
    – Dennis Jaheruddin
    Commented Oct 13, 2017 at 9:04

4 Answers 4

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This boils down to whether hotel reservations are transferable.

Unlike flight tickets which rarely are, hotels reservations are most often transferable. Most booking of hotels does not require advance information on the guest, they only require information for booking the transaction which is used to charge the reservation either immediately or later.

Some hotels charge do not even charge anything until checkout which is going to be a problem since they may charge it to the person who booked. Most times though I was able to substitute a new card at check-in but if the guest does not do so, the original buyer may be charged.

In some countries, registration of guest is mandatory and you may have to fill out this information right after booking. This is an exception and I do not remember where it happened to me last but there are several countries that send this information to the local police or an immigration database. In this case you would have to call ahead and ask for the substitution to be made, rather than another guest just showing up instead of the one who booked.

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Well...yes, it probably violates the terms in some way, especially if persons A and B are unrelated and otherwise unknown to each other.

However, most hotels are much looser about who uses a reservation than airlines so it's much more possible than not. Many (most?) actually accommodate this situation by allowing another name to be added for check-in in case that person arrives earlier then the one who made the booking.

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I have booked (with a legitimate purpose) quite a few hotel rooms for other people. Reservation in my name with my credit card. But I usually mention, from reservation time, that it's for someone else, and mention the name.

You could try emailing the hotel, explaining that your colleague is coming instead of you, and could they update the reservation details.

On the other hand, a 50 EUR/night hotel in Dubai is at the lower end of things. They might prove to be quite flexible.

FYI I had a look at the prices for the Accor group in Dubai next week, plenty of options between 50 and 80 EUR...

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    This is the simplest method, in the US, at least. Person A calls the hotel itself (not the reservation line) and adds Person B's name to the reservation so he can get a room key. Person B pays for the room on check out. Bob's your uncle! Of course, there must be some trust between Persons A & B that B will pick up the tab or the hotel will happily charge the credit card on record (that of Person A). If you're setting up a business to do this, you'll have the web site's credibility to ensure that payment is made.
    – FreeMan
    Commented Oct 12, 2017 at 21:01
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You can resell your hotel reservation only if terms permits you to transfer the name on the booking (similar to plane tickets). Without a name transfer there is a risk that hotel won't able to check-in the person to prevent fraud. To avoid the surprise, it's good to confirm the terms with the hotel directly or just take the risk. See: Hotel early arrival for another guest

There are several services that offer secondary markets to resell non-refundable travel tickets (similar to Craigslist, eBay or StubHub) such as Hall St, Cancelon, ChangeYourFlight and other similar. See: New sites let you sell unused trips.

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