Generally online hotel booking sites like travelguru, yatra, cleartrip charge a cancellation fee if you cancel a hotel booking done through them. Amount refund to you is booking amount minus the cancellation fee. This cancellation fee depends on the number of days between the cancellation date and the date of check in. Generally the cancellation rules are as follows:

• Less than one clear day between the date of cancellation and date of check in – Full booking amount is deducted

• One to two clear days between the date of cancellation and date of check in – Half the booking amount or sometimes the charges for one night are deducted as cancellation fee

• More than two clear days between date of check in and cancellation – Fee in the range of Rs 300 – 500 is deducted as cancellation fee

Now here is how you can get maximum refund when you cancel your hotel booking. Let’s say you are in India and have to check in on 5th May and you suddenly decided to cancel your ticket on 4th May. As per Rule 1, you will get no refund if you cancel your ticket on 4th May. However, there are many parts of the world, like USA, where it will be 3rd May when it is 4th May in India !
Now all you have to do is ask your friends in US or wherever the date is still one day behind to cancel your ticket and you can now get refund as per Rule 2 as compared to no refund as per Rule 1 because you get one day extra between checkin and cancelltion date. Similarly you can get refund as per Rule 3 rather than Rule 2 if you are cancelling two days before check in.

Just give your friend/family in US your hotel booking details, they can easily cancel your hotel booking and the refund money will flow back to your credit card.  If you are an IT guy you can connect to a proxy server in US and cancel your ticket from there and save money.

Happy cancellations and happy saving!