What Is An Early Departure Fee

If you have a hotel reservation for several days and want to depart one or two days early. Is it possible to leave early without an extra payment, or do hotels charge extra? You may be charged to check out early.

One of the key reasons this happens is that many individuals purposely check into a hotel for a set number of days to get a lower rate. Then, upon arrival, they intend to check out early and don’t expect to pay the full rate.

In our guide, you can find out more on, do hotels charge for early checkout. By the end, you’ll see you shouldn’t get an early departure fee for only one night, and depending on your situation for leaving early, you could waive this fee. (Learn How Far Away Can You See Clouds)

Early Departure Fee

What Is An Early Departure Fee?

After the cancellation deadline (or after you check in), you may be required to pay an “early departure fee” if you decide you need to leave a day early or cut short your hotel reservation.

This is a penalty cost you must pay to end your stay without further obligations, and you can find the cost can vary from hotel to hotel.

What type of booking did you make?

What kind of booking did you make should be your priority when calculating your early departure fee from many hotels? There is a good risk chance the hotel will try to charge you the total price of your booking if you booked a prepaid stay.

A good example is if you were to pay a full reservation fee of around $1,000, and you stayed 3 nights and were paying $200 per night for your five-night stay. Of course, many hotels will waive the fee or come to an arrangement depending on your circumstances.

Alternatively, you might request credit for the nights you didn’t use on another date. So you could arrange two nights for a future date a few months in advance if you only use three of the five nights? If you are trying to beat the system, remember that a credit card doesn’t get a debit immediately, which could take a few days.

However, in situations when you haven’t yet been charged, you could have more chances to change your reservation. In addition, the hotel has the authority to bill you the total price.

If you made your reservation through an OTA, you would likely need to get in touch with them first, and then they will need to get in touch with the hotel to handle your request. In that case, resist having lofty expectations. But once more, a compromise might be conceivable.

How Some Hotels Offer Early Departures Differently

If you booked a flexible or standard rate that permits cancellations up to a specified number of hours before your stay, such as 24 hours, 48 hours, or 72 hours. There are a few various ways a hotel may handle your early departure. (Learn How To Travel Around The World)

No fee with a full refund

Some hotels may give you a full refund and waive any early departure fees if you decide to shorten your stay. Although this is undoubtedly the best-case scenario, you must check out on time for the hotel to abide by this policy.

That most likely implies leaving at the regular check-out time between 10 am and 11 am. Better if done sooner. You may notice that brands with more lenient premature departure rules aren’t found in the lower price range.

However, compared to other hotels, some brands, such as Wyndham and Radisson, were far more likely to have this policy.

Strategy in Hotel Reservation

Charge for one night

When you check out early, many hotels will charge you for one night plus taxes. All of the hotels we have been at and contacted seem to have this as their most typical policy.

Therefore, if you booked a five-night stay but had to cancel after the third night, you might only be responsible for the fourth night’s night and not the fifth.

Charge you a different rate

Your nightly rate can decrease if you schedule a longer stay, especially an extended stay. This implies that, on average, a more extended stay will cause lower nightly rates. Therefore, it’s likely that the hotel will charge you based on the nightly fee you would have been charged had you booked a shorter stay if you ended up cutting your stay short.

For instance, the nightly fee may have been $150 if you were staying 10 nights, but it would have been $170 if you were only staying seven. In that situation, you can be charged $170 per night if you decide to cut your stay short.

Charge you a flat fee

Some hotels may charge a flat rate if you check out early. In these circumstances, you pay for the nights you spend at the hotel beside the fixed rate. Some hotels charge outrageous early departure fees, so beware of such. These costs occasionally can be much higher than the cost of a single night.

You could try to speak with someone at the front desk if you noted that the early departure fee is quite pricey to determine whether they would charge you that outrageous amount.

Early Departure Fees Tips

Notify the hotel

It is an excellent idea to let the hotel know if you think you’ll be checking out early. You might avoid an early departure fee if you told them about it when booking.

Or, at the absolute least, you might learn more about the hotel’s decision regarding managing your early departure. For instance, they might show that they’ll only bill you for 50% of the price listed on their website. (Read Safest Country In South America)

Check out early

You must check out as early as multiple on your last day, even if you must depart a day early or shorten your reservation by several days.

If you can check out very early in the morning, your chances of avoiding the early departure fee for the night increase, and they drastically decrease if you check out later in the day or evening.

Check the inventory

The inventory might sometimes affect how the hotel will manage your early departure. They will be more likely to charge you if the hotel is full and they have to turn away additional guests due to your booking.

However, the hotel might be more willing to forgive the fee if plenty of rooms are available, as you did not take them to pay for turning away guests.

Split Your Reservations

A strategy that occasionally works if you’re concerned about being charged early departure costs is making multiple bookings. Let’s pretend that you were planning a 10-night stay but weren’t sure if you would stay past the fifth night. In that scenario, you may reserve two stays of five nights.

If you want this to work, your cancellation policy needs to be among the most lenient, allowing you to change your mind up to 24 hours or even the day before your stay. Some individuals make many one-night reservations, which is excessive, yet does skip any sign of extra fees.

You should evaluate the amount you would have saved if you had only made one booking since the savings may outweigh any potential early departure fees.

Early Departure Fees Tips

Complain to the Hotel

You can use the fact that you will have to check out early because of a “fault” at the hotel to get the hotel to waive the early departure fee.

You might inform the hotel that you had a poor experience and would wish to stay somewhere else, for instance, if the AC wasn’t working, the bathroom was filthy, or there was even impolite treatment.

This might be used as leverage to get out of paying the early departure fees.

Conclusion On Early Departure Fees and Leaving Early

An early departure fee is a typical revenue management tool to stop the circumvention of limits placed on reservations for fewer nights. An illustration would be a refundable booking for several nights during a cheaper period, which in certain hotels might be the weekend or a Saturday night.

A night person who wanted to take advantage of a reduced nightly rate would book longer than they want, cancel and leave early, and then attempt to keep the same rate per night.

This usually only applies to refundable guest bookings because it makes no sense to charge an early departure charge if you have already prepaid for your trip. It does, however, occasionally apply to reservations made using loyalty points. (Learn The Distance From Pyongyang To Seoul)

A night’s stay is frequently included in the early departure price. If you adhere to the notice time, for example, 24 hours before checking out, you would only pay for one night more than your actual stay if you booked for 7 nights and stayed 2 or 7 and stayed 4.

What Is An Early Departure Fee

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