Buy an unused hotel booking
Hotels are often easier to transfer than flights, and more variable. A property cares less about who sleeps in the room than about who is contractually booked — but whether it will change that is its own decision, and some refuse.
Do direct and platform hotel bookings transfer differently?
Yes, and the difference is how many parties can say no. A reservation made directly with the property is generally simplest, because the hotel controls it and can amend the lead guest name itself.
A reservation made through a booking platform is governed by that platform's rules as well as the hotel's, and reception often cannot change it unilaterally even when it would like to.
On SpareHolidays the seller performs the transfer with the supplier and uploads evidence of the result. Elsewhere the platform may do it instead — check that service's terms rather than assuming either way, because the answer decides who you depend on for the handover.
The listing states which route the booking came through. If it does not, ask the seller before you buy, because the answer changes how likely the handover is to complete.
What should I confirm before buying a hotel listing?
Four things, all answerable by the seller from their own confirmation email before you pay a penny.
A seller who cannot answer them has not looked; one who will not answer them is telling you something else.
- Will the property change the lead guest name at all, and does it charge for doing so?
- Is the rate tied to a loyalty account or a member discount that will not survive the change of guest?
- Does the booking include anything name-specific, such as airport transfers, a restaurant reservation or a spa credit?
- Which platform holds the reservation, and does it permit a guest change without cancelling and rebooking?
Why do some hotels refuse to change the guest name?
Almost always because of the rate rather than the room. A rate booked through a loyalty account belongs to that account, and a negotiated corporate or member rate carries eligibility conditions a new guest does not meet.
A platform booking may also have no mechanism for a guest change short of cancelling and rebooking, which at a non-refundable rate is not a change at all.
None of these are the seller being difficult, and all are answerable before you pay. Ask which rate the booking was made on, because a plain flexible rate booked directly behaves completely differently from one attached to a membership number.
What is checked before a listing reaches me?
When you submit your listing, it enters our review queue. A person checks it, and it becomes public only after approval.
Identity verification with Stripe is required before a seller can accept an offer or hand over a booking.
Neither check tells you whether the supplier will permit the transfer, because no marketplace can decide that on an airline's behalf. They are a filter on people, not a warranty on bookings.
So the division of labour is simple. Review and identity are ours. Reading the supplier's own transfer policy is yours, and it is the failure mode neither check can catch for you.
Questions buyers ask
Will the hotel let the booking change to my name?
Many will, particularly on direct bookings, but it remains the property's decision and some refuse. Where it refuses, the purchase does not complete and you are refunded.
Where a property agrees, the change is usually straightforward, because the room is sold either way and the hotel loses nothing by changing who occupies it.
If it refuses, ask the seller for that refusal in writing. It normally names its reason, and the reason occasionally points at something that would work instead.
Can I just turn up with the seller's confirmation?
No. Reception checks identity against the reservation at check-in, and a mismatch can mean being turned away from a non-refundable booking somebody else paid for.
Get the name changed properly through the property before you travel, then take the amended confirmation with you.
Reception will normally have the change on their system already, but a confirmation in your own name settles in seconds what an argument at the desk does not.
What if the room was booked on a member or loyalty rate?
Assume it will not transfer. A loyalty rate is tied to the account that earned it, and this is one of the more common reasons a hotel transfer is refused.
It is also invisible from the listing price alone, which is what makes it worth asking about specifically rather than hoping.
Ask the seller which rate the booking was made on before you pay. Only a rate the property can move to any guest is worth buying at a discount you cannot later reclaim.