Border closed before interview! Advice Needed please!!!

[fem_femme 6]

Hi guys, so after waiting for such a long time for the interview overseas, the country my husband was going to travel to from his own for his visa interview (CR-1) at the US Embassy closed the borders due to coronavirus and all methods of transportation halted yesterday at night per mutual agreement of both countries, so my husband had boughs a train ticket to get to his interview and we had a nonrefundable hotel booked for 3 days. He was just short of 2 days to get there to make it! The border is closed for 10 days for now according to the official sources, so we don't know what to do now. 

 

My husband was able to get his train ticket refunded so that's good, BUT the problem we are having is with the hotel in the country where he was supposed to go to the interview. I wrote to them explaining the situation that the border just closed right before his planned visit and I explained why he was visiting them (interview). I did not ask for a refund since it's a nonrefundable hotel booking, but due to situation all around the world where all the airlines and others reimburse for cancelled travels that is out of peoples control, this hotel hung up on my husband when he called to talk to them and they are completely ignoring my messages through Booking.  All we want is to keep those paid 3 days and move it to the end of the march when we get a new interview date. You would think that the hotel will be understanding considering that I am not asking for a refund, but they just hung up. I emailed the US embassy explaining that the border is closed and sent them the official article where it says so although I am sure that are aware by now except that I emailed right before the midnight the closing was supposed to take place. Will this be a problem towards our case that I asked to be rescheduled after 10 days passes? I'm also upset about this hotel situation as I have never seen such a crappy treatment.

 

I'd like to also get some advice as to what steps I can take towards the hotel? I'm thinking about writing a letter and sending my messages that I sent to the hotel to the country's tourism ministry with the article about closed border and explain that we only wanted to move those 3 days forwards to around 2 weeks time when the border opens again. I feel like we have been cheated and treated badly considering that nowadays companies and tourism industry can be more understanding especially when we don't even want a refund. We really do not want to lose that money and book somewhere else honestly and why should we? Moreover, my husband was thinking to collect all these messages we sent, the complaint to the tourism ministry and our booking info and the charge to the credit card to show a payment has been made to take it with him to the hotel when the time comes and if the hotel refuses his stay, then we can call the police on site? I don't even know what's awaiting us with this cancellation I made because the only flight to that city right now is with 15 hours of layover (it should be an hour of direct flight) plus the ticket is pricey so I feel like it's best to wait out these 10-14 days or so and just get there as planned without all these extra hassles to get there on time the last minute. Any advice please?

[arken 4,197]

For the hotel part i doubt what you are planning to do will be of any help or if cops will help you on site. If the hotel policy is that, you can’t do anything around it unless you bought some insurance that allows refund in these sort of circumstances.

[JFH 12,191]

I understand your frustration. I’m not trying to upset you but take a deep breath. I work in the airline industry where people are losing their jobs because of this. Perspective. You will likely not get the cost of the hotel nights back. That’s the deal when you book a non-refundable date. I know it’s not your fault but it’s not the hotel’s either and they still have to pay their staff. I would not recommend writing to the government, quite frankly they have much bigger issues right now than your few hotel nights. And you certainly shouldn’t be getting the police involved in a civil dispute with a hotelier. A hotel is private property and the manager has the right to deny anyone he wishes. That’s being ridiculous. 
 

Where I work there are people who have had to go into unemployment for 6 weeks because of this. I have had to take a substantial pay cut just to keep my job. We have been having sessions at work about perspective as when the job cuts and pay cuts were announced there were some ugly scenes. Perspective. You’re still alive. You’re still together. This WILL end one day. Many, many people are going to lose money. I know that airlines are refunding but unless the hotel is a member of a global chain such as Hilton or Marriott, the airlines have a lot more money in their contingency fund for stuff like this. Or they cut employees to be able to refund customers. 
 

The financial loss won’t feel so bad tomorrow when you’ve had time to think about perspective. 

Edited March 15, 2020 by JFH

[Lemonslice 4,953]

This is a hiccup, not the end of the world.  Breathe, you will be fine.  

 

You might have more success trying to ask for a voucher to rebook later than to get your money back; it is not their faullt, nor yours... so the nicer and more accomodating you are, the best result you might get in my opinion.  

 

Other option would be to check if your credit card includes some kind of insurance.  

 

[Mr & Mrs T 778]

Hi , 

sadly the hotel has no obligation to refund you .
you can explain your circumstances to the manager but it’s up to them and their solidarity due to the situation to say yes or no . 
maybe they can « offer » to replace the dates of your trip 
i worked as a receptionist for years and we always tried to understand different situations and find good solutions for our guests. 
if you made your reservation via booking.con , deal with booking.com and they gonna see with the hotel what is it possible to do . 

maybe do you have an insurance with your Visa that is maybe covering unforeseen situations ? 

Edited March 15, 2020 by Mr & Mrs T

[fem_femme 6]

Thanks for the advice guys, but as mentioned in my post, I am not looking to get refunded, I simply wanted to move those 3 days towards the end of the month since my husband still will have to go to that neighboring country so no point in getting a refund...they are just completely ignoring so i was hoping to hear back. At this point I will just contact Booking.com to see if we can get help to move those dates to a alter time. Thanks for your opinions. )))

[Boiler 45,932]

Booking.com will support the Hotels booking policies which you obviously read and agreed to.

[fem_femme 6]

thanks guys so I was finally able to get hold of the hotel stuff and hardly spoke English to my surprise but there was someone who said that they can move the date so once we hear from the US embassy I'll contact them again. Have you also had issues lately with uploading docs on CEAC to be sent to the Embassy directly? I keep trying to upload the DS-5540 form but each time it shows as application error and can't seem go upload it with supporting docs too in addition to the brand new police certificate.

[SalishSea 18,078]

Bigger issue is how reasonable is it to expect that border will really be reopened in ten days time?  Virus counts are only going up.

[JFH 12,191]

Europe hasn’t peaked yet with the virus cases. China has peaked and is now on the downslope where the number of new cases each day is getting smaller. But for Europe, the worst is yet to come. Personally I would until the border actually opens before rebooking new dates. Everything is an unknown at the moment.

[fem_femme 6]

2 hours ago, Jorgedig said:

Bigger issue is how reasonable is it to expect that border will really be reopened in ten days time?  Virus counts are only going up.

oh I know..for NOW it's 10 days, but who knows. This is so frustrating as we waited such a long time for this. I suppose my husband can take another route that's pricey and extensive but now it's last minute so once we get another day and the border isn't opened by then, then we can explore another route without cancelling it the second time. Im guess this can not reflect negatively on our case is it..I mean the embassy knows the border just closed on the 14th so not making it won't harm our case if it's postponed? I explained it to he Embassy via email that it's out of our control as we waited such a long time for this special day for it be ruined like this for an unknown period of time. :((( Im just mad that we didn't make arrangements to get there sooner but who knew it would be this way...he was just short of 2 days from entering the neighboring country to make it but it's a close country so there was also no need for him to get there several days before.

Edited March 15, 2020 by fem_femme

[fem_femme 6]

44 minutes ago, JFH said:

Europe hasn’t peaked yet with the virus cases. China has peaked and is now on the downslope where the number of new cases each day is getting smaller. But for Europe, the worst is yet to come. Personally I would until the border actually opens before rebooking new dates. Everything is an unknown at the moment.

thank you! I have emailed the embassy so will see what they suggest. im so feeling down right now...very unexpected quite honestly. 

[Dashinka 24,727]

Just as an FYI, I had booked non-refundable hotel rooms in Beijing for February and March.  For one of the visits, the hotel at the direction of the Chinese government closed (force majeure), so they refunded that stay.  For the other two bookings, I emailed the hotel with all the information regarding the inability to actually get to Beijing and they also refunded those stays.  YMMV

 

Good Luck!

[fem_femme 6]

3 hours ago, Dashinka said:

Just as an FYI, I had booked non-refundable hotel rooms in Beijing for February and March.  For one of the visits, the hotel at the direction of the Chinese government closed (force majeure), so they refunded that stay.  For the other two bookings, I emailed the hotel with all the information regarding the inability to actually get to Beijing and they also refunded those stays.  YMMV

 

Good Luck!

im glad you got your money!! I would be surprised if China didn't refund you! :))