The customer canceled the hotel room and thought he would get away with it free of charge – A dispute began over how to interpret the right to cancel

Voyager thought that all hotels worked the same way, and because of this assumption, he got hundreds of euros of consequences from the archipelago hotel.

It is about the right to cancel the room, which the Consumer Disputes Board takes a position on in its recent decision.

The customer called a hotel in the outer archipelago and booked a room there for the summer of 2024.

The traveler canceled the reservation two days before his arrival, but received an invoice for 360 euros and then a payment reminder.

Board appears from the decisionthat the customer assumed that it is generally normal practice in hotels to cancel the reservation free of charge on the same day before evening.

According to the entrepreneur, the free cancellation limit for individuals in this destination is one week before arrival.

The traveler emphasizes that there was no mention of the week limit in the e-mail he received. He demanded that the invoice be cancelled.

Entrepreneur deny the claim. He says that he always goes through the cancellation conditions with the phone bookers, because it is a five-hour sea journey to the hotel.

The connection ship’s schedule is limited, so canceled rooms can no longer be sold on the same day. The hotelier claimed to have told the customer about the one-week condition, but there is no recording to prove it. The cancellation conditions are also online.

Based on the documents, the entrepreneur considers what the consumer’s responsibility is in situations where assumptions are made.

“So, can you just make reservations without finding out about things yourself and claim that the service provider hasn’t told you about the cancellation conditions?”

About room cancellations there are no separate regulations in the Consumer Protection Act, so the board applied general contract law principles.

There was no evidence of a telephone conversation, so the board considered that the right of cancellation had not been agreed upon.

This creates a contradiction: if there are no conditions, the reservation is binding. Then the customer would not be able to cancel their stay at all.

The board decided to rely on the entrepreneur’s rule, i.e. the one-week cancellation limit. Legally, this is a better option for the traveler than not having the right to cancel at all.

Still, two days was too little. The board therefore does not recommend that the hotel reimburse the bill.

Board the decisions are recommendations, i.e. they are not legally binding, but they are generally followed regularly.