I recently booked a fully refundable stay at the Nobu Hotel in Chicago over memorial day weekend. Burned my travel credit + paid a hefty amount in cash. Had some sudden changes to my plans, so I went to the portal to cancel and get my refund so I could rebook a new stay. It gives me a popup saying "This booking is unique and cannot be cancelled online." Okay, weird, but I guess I can cancel by calling. Multiple agents attempted to process the cancellation and refund, but they all ran into some sort of "technical issue" that required escalation, and promised resolution within 24 hours. Several days later, I still hadn't received a resolution or refund.
I eventually got a hold of a supervisor, who also couldn't figure it out and had no explanation for what was going on other than "it won't let me cancel even though your booking is refundable." The best they could do was refund me entirely in travel credits, which I said was unacceptable since Capital One travel credits are not the same thing as cash and I wasn't interested in rebooking via the portal after all the problems I've had. After some more chatting, I ended up having to file a formal billing dispute with Capital One to get my cash back - against their very own travel portal! I then had to call Capital One Travel all over again to get the credit returned. During this whole time, prices crept up (Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, duh) so the ordeal has cost me a lot of money too. Anyone else run into this sort of issue before? What a nightmare. Now I see why everyone avoids these portals like the plague, and how the $395 fee is definitely not "free."