Can This Trip Be Saved: Overbooked Hotel Rooms
by John Hawks

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Answer: We'll skip the obvious truth that your first mistake was not booking the hotel rooms through an experienced travel agent who could solve this type of problem for you!

To the average consumer, it's hard to understand how a hotel that has a set number of rooms available every night - say, 150 available rooms to rent out on any given day - can wind up with 155 or 160 guaranteed reservations for those 150 rooms. You'd think that the computer would simply shut off after room # 150 and not accept any more reservations for that date, right? What happens is that a significant number of reservations on any given night are not guaranteed for payment - and, lots of those folks end up as "no shows," so the hotel loses the chance to rent those rooms. Over the years, hotels have learned on average how many no shows they'll have, so they "oversell" their rooms each night to account for the no shows. And, once in a while, everyone decides to show up, creating an overbooked situation. (Sometimes, oversold rooms occur due to simple reservations errors by employees or the computers, too.)

When you're holding a confirmed reservation only (one that's not guaranteed for payment with a credit card or other means), you're largely out of luck in legal terms if you're overbooked. Sure, some established hotel chains will go out of their way to find alternate lodging for you, and they might even compensate you in some way - but they're doing so based on their own customer service policies, not due to any legal requirements.

Your story is different, because you actually guaranteed payment for the reservation. (In other words, if the four of you had turned up as no shows, the hotel would have charged your credit cards for the cost of the rooms.) When a hotel overbooks guests who have guaranteed reservations, that's called "walking" - and the hotel is legally obligated to find alternate rooms for you (even if those rooms are the hotel's Presidential Suite or rooms in another hotel). In fact, the hotel must take the room rate you guaranteed and apply it to the replacement room rate - so that, if the alternate lodging costs more than your original rate, the hotel must make up the difference.

Many reputable hotels (especially the major chains) will go beyond that by picking up the cost of a shuttle or taxi to the other property, offering complimentary meals, etc. However, it's not legal for the Orlando hotel to simply ignore you with a letter and a visitor's guide. Your best bets: Send a stern letter or fax demanding your "walking rights" - and, next time, use a travel agent!