All-inclusive hotel accidentally overcharges guests by $2,500

Best Travel Problem Solver: I booked a weekend trip to the Miraval Berkshires, an all-inclusive resort in Lenox, Massachusetts, in early September last year. It was my best friend’s birthday and my sister was initially going to come with us. She couldn’t come, so I notified the hotel well within the allotted time to change my reservation without penalty. Instead of three nights and three people, it would be two nights with two people. Because Miraval is all-inclusive, the property charges per person, per night.

The hotel charged me for three people. I noticed the extra charges when I checked out and a representative first told me I would get my money back. A few days later, another hotel representative told me I would not receive a refund.

After trying for over a month to get this resolved and asking for a detailed breakdown of the nightly charges so I could understand where the difference was, their billing department offered to refund $290, which is about 1 /10 of the additional costs.

The Miraval team had offered such a poor solution, and even then the mere $290 was not refunded or processed. Now they no longer respond to my emails. The whole process has been exhausting and I feel stuck, like there’s nothing else I can do. Can you help me get back the € 2,500 in overpaid costs?

– Dalia Hamzeh, Braintree, MA

ANSWER: Miraval should have charged you for two nights for two people as you requested. If it overcharged you, it should have refunded the charges quickly instead of stringing you along and giving you the silent treatment.

You did the right thing by calling the resort to cancel your sister’s stay and sending a follow-up email. This creates a necessary paper trail to prove that you requested a cancellation. You also submitted the request within the cancellation period.

It appears that Miraval never confirmed the cancellation in writing. This should have set off all kinds of alarms for you, as it means the hotel is still expecting three guests and plans to charge you accordingly.

How can you get a reaction out of a hotel like the Miraval Berkshires? You could have looked up the name of the hotel’s general manager and sent him an email. The manager would have forwarded the message to someone at the reservation, who would then have made sure you had written confirmation.

Another option to resolve this is at check-in. In a follow-up conversation you said that you asked about the rate when checking in because it involved three people. A representative assured you it would be resolved. But I probably wouldn’t have left the lobby without a written confirmation stating the correct price.

Finally, after several failures to get this corrected, you could have reached out to someone at Miraval’s corporate owner, Hyatt. I publish the names, numbers and email addresses of their customer service managers on my consumer site, Elliott.org.

I have contacted Miraval on your behalf. A representative responded, saying the hotel would “in no way” comment on questions about guests’ bills or personal experiences.