Qantas Hotels / Booking Cancellation (am I screwed?)

[jlzrbm]

My partner and I have booked the Doubletree by Hilton Hobart in mid-June to head down for Dark mof_ festival (which I highly recommend).
We have a non-refundable booking made on Qantas Hotels (figuring we are a sure bet to head down, and if anything were to happen we have travel insurance).
Unfortunately, my partner's grandmother has died, and her funeral is now scheduled for that weekend.
Even worse - given that she was 91 years old, our travel insurance does not appear to cover us for costs due to her advanced age (?)
Does anyone have any advice / experience with this? I've tried contacting Qantas Hotels but have been told it's a no-go and to go through my insurance - insurance are telling me to go through Qantas Hotels.

 

[MELso]

Dark mof_ is good fun.

Suggest contacting the hotel and seeing if they'll reschedule to another date. It won't be Dark mof_, but at least you won't have to write off the booking.

 

[A321]

Working for one of Australia's largest accommodation providers, we get extenuating circumstances requests from Qantas Hotels all the time like this, so surprised to hear they've fobbed you off.

They're probably just sticking to the terms but I'd push a little harder to get them to escalate, or even better, contact the hotel directly (reiterating you know all changes have to be made by the third party, but mention how un helpful they've been)

I'm sure they can resell the room at this time of year $$$

 

[SYD]

Have you tried DIY? The QF Hotels website manage booking lets you change / cancel bookings (at least for flexible).

I’m assuming you tried cancelling and it’s told you’ll lose it (non refundable)? But have you tried Changing the dates / duration (assuming you can reuse it at a later time)?

Not the same scenario, but I have a prepaid but flexible booking coming up in Cambodia. After booking, we rejigged travel dates and needed to push back arrival / departure by one day. The system let my DIY, in fact it was slightly cheaper and the difference was back on my CC within a day.

Failing that, I’ve seen others here being able to get a credit towards another booking ie have something in mind when calling up.

 

[Eastwick20]

I agree with the above, even if your not sure when you can get there , maybe see if they push it out a random date later in the year/next year and then change again if need be once your dates become more locked in.

As a general rule Hotels are pretty good with agreeing to date changes in circumstances like this.