Hilton Cancels Coachella Bookings, Demands More Money: Any Recourse?

I’ve written in the past about the general concept of hotels canceling confirmed reservations. This includes everything from guests being “walked” on the day of arrival, to a buy-out events causing the hotel to close to the public. Along those lines, OMAAT reader Rob flagged an interesting situation that’s being discussed on Reddit, and asked for my take.

DoubleTree Palm Springs cancels “cheap” Coachella bookings

There’s this little thing called Coachella that happens every year, and apparently it’s quite popular with people, and even drives up hotel rates. As you’d expect, many people book their stays way in advance, given how quickly hotels sell out.

It would appear that when the availability calendar first opened in recent weeks, the DoubleTree Palm Springs, part of Hilton Honors, forgot to load inflated rates for next year’s Coachella weekends, in April 2026. As a result, many people locked in rates of around $225 per night.

However, in recent days, the hotel has been reaching out to those who booked these rates, stating that it’s unable to honor reservations “due to an unexpected system issue.” The hotel offers to help people “explore alternative accommodation.”

So several people reached out to the hotel to ask about options. The hotel referred to what happened as “a technical glitch” that caused inventory to be “erroneously opened at incorrect rates.” The hotel justifies the cancelation by explaining that booking rules and restrictions state that “under circumstances where it appears that the reservations resulted from a mistake or error we do reserve the right to cancel or modify reservations.”

What’s being offered to guests impacted by this? The hotel is offering what it claims is 50% off the current published rate, in addition to waived resort fees. For a four night stay, that comes out to a total of $1,479.35 including taxes and fees.

Can hotels do this, and do consumers have recourse?

Unfortunately in the United States, we have pretty weak consumer protections, especially for the hotel industry. So I don’t want to say that hotels “can” do this, but I will say that this is unfortunately a far too common practice.

This is far from the first time that we’ve seen hotels act this way, especially when there’s a big event in town, whether it’s sports or music. Do I think it’s ethical, and a good way to do business? No. But I also know that it’s something that hotels try to do, and as consumers, there’s not some easy avenue to get this reversed.

So, is there any recourse? Certainly there’s value to blasting hotels publicly, whether it’s on review sites like TripAdvisor, or contacting media. That being said, don’t expect the major hotel groups to step in and mediate on your behalf for the original rate to be honored.

I’m not a lawyer, so I can’t speak to how this would end if you tried to litigate it, and what the hotel could reasonably argue is an “error.”

I don’t want to give the hotel a pat on the back here, but I’ve gotta say, the offer they give actually seems semi-decent. It seems the person had booked a nightly rate of $225 plus taxes and fees (including a resort fee), while the alternative they were offered comes out to $370 all-in per night. That’s probably the best deal you’re going to get at Coachella.

Again, none of this is to say that I condone this practice by hotels, but rather, I’m just being practical, based on what I’ve seen over the years. I’ve also seen a lot of hotels not honor rates, and not offer a material discount.

Bottom line

The DoubleTree Palm Springs is refusing to honor the rates that it initially published over 2026 Coachella weekends, when the calendar first opened. The hotel claims it has the right to cancel reservations that are mistakes, though I suspect people would interpret the definition of a “mistake” differently, for these purposes.

Unfortunately this isn’t an uncommon practice from hotels, disappointing as it might be. You can always fight back and give them as much bad press as possible. Though in fairness, I’ve seen hotels act much worse, in terms of not even offering a material discount over the published rate.

What do you make of this Coachella hotel situation?