Last night I booked a room for next weekend in a Holiday Inn. This morning, I got word that my event was moved, so I cancelled the Holiday Inn and booked a room in a hotel closer to the event. I just realized that Holiday Inn will charge me for the first night, as part of the cancellation.
This is on me -- I'm pretty sure they gave warning both when I booked and when I cancelled, and I just didn't pay close enough attention because I was in a rush (and because I'm used to hotels that allow cancellations up to a night or two beforehand). Still, is there anything I can try to get the charge removed? Has anyone had any success with this?
Update To update: I phoned the hotel, and got transferred, transferred, and transferred again to a nice lady called Holly, who tried to put me on hold and accidentally disconnected me, but promptly called back, all apologies, and put me on hold for a long time, while (she told me) she got transferred three times, until she finally got a gentleman who looked it up and said that, in spite of the clear message in my email, I was not actually charged the cancellation fee. So I thanked Holly very much, and now we will see if that is actually true. (update again It was true and I wasn't charged.)
Conclusion, always worth making the phone call