Disappointing behavior from the hotel management.
By mistake, we booked the night of July 3rd instead of August 3rd. We tried to get in touch with the hotel via Expedia and directly, explaining the honest mistake in good faith, asking for a refund given the fact that we were going to rebook the correct night in any case.
Since we never heard back from them, we rebooked the correct night.
When we checked in on August 3rd, we asked the receptionist about our refund inquiry and she put us on the phone with the hotel manager. Even though we explained the situation, the hotel manager said ours was a non refundable reservation, and that she wasn’t able to discern an honest mistake made in good faith from other kinds of behaviors. When we asked her why she hadn’t replied to our inquiries, she said she had replied to Expedia (they didn’t share this info with us, so we will give her the benefit of doubt) and ignored our direct emails.
This is bad customer service, and feels like they deliberately avoid to apply any common sense just to make a couple more euros off the back of customers. If someone explains the context and rebooks the correct date, there’s no reason not to be kind and understanding, unless you just want to exploit them. Good customer service and trust are worth far more than the revenue you can possibly make from not refunding a single night. We felt ignored and exploited, whereas during the rest of our trip the Faroese have been wonderfully welcoming.