I booked a nonrefundable room at the Hampton Inn by accident. How do I fix it?

Illustration by Dustin Elliott

Carol Egan accidentally booked an expensive and nonrefundable room at a Hampton Inn. Can she fix the mistake or is she stuck with a $264 bill?

Question

My grandniece is getting married soon. We used the travel information she provided online to book our room at a Hampton Inn.

When we clicked on the link, it opened up a webpage listing the rooms available for the wedding dates in the special block with a nonrefundable rate of $264.

We thought the rate was high, but we followed the wedding party’s instructions. The bride’s mother called us and said that our room rate was supposed to be $149. She instructed us to call the manager at the Hampton Inn to get it straightened out

During that call, we realized that the block of rooms allocation must have reached its capacity when we used the website to book the room. Consequently, the website quoted the $264 price. However, we later discovered that the block allocation had already been extended before we contacted the local manager. The manager said he could not modify or cancel the reservation since I made it on the Hilton website. He gave us a number for Hilton and suggested that they could cancel or change our reservation.