🏨 Accommodation and booking platforms
In brief
If you book a hotel or holiday flat online, you have no statutory 14-day right of withdrawal. This applies where the contract provides for a specific date or period.
- Whether you can cancel free of charge is set out in the booking terms.
- Many portals only act as intermediaries. The contracting party is then the hotel.
- Some portals are themselves the contracting party. This is stated in the terms.
Save the booking confirmation and cancellation terms as an image or PDF.
Step by step
- Find the contracting partyRead whether the portal or the hotel is your contracting party.
- Check cancellationCheck the deadline and costs for free cancellation before you click Book.
- Save the termsSave the terms as they stood at the time of booking.
- Report defectsReport defects to the landlord immediately in writing and document them.
Deadlines
- If you book flight and hotel separately, you do not have a package holiday (except for a linked online booking under § 651c BGB).
- Free cancellation is a goodwill gesture or contract term, not a statutory entitlement.
- For holiday flats elsewhere in the EU, foreign law may matter; not checked in full text.
- Check that the booking page belongs to a genuine provider, not an imitation site.
In depth · legal basis, figures and practice – for advisers and professionals
Right of withdrawal
Under § 312g (1) BGB, distance contracts in principle carry a right of withdrawal under § 355 BGB. § 312g (2) no. 9 BGB exempts contracts for services in the areas of accommodation for purposes other than residential use, carriage of goods, motor vehicle rental, and the supply of food and beverages as well as leisure activities, if the contract provides for a specific date or period for performance (brief evaluation of the statutory text; the number contains further restrictions that are not reproduced here). Verbraucherzentrale Hamburg and the European Consumer Centre point out that there is no right of withdrawal for online holiday bookings (search result). Whether and how this affects flights and trains has not been checked in full text.
Contracting party
According to search results, portals such as Booking.com or HRS typically act only as intermediaries; online travel agencies such as Hotels.com or Expedia may themselves be the contracting party. This must be determined from the terms in each case; evidence only as search results.
Linked booking
Under § 651c BGB, a business is treated like a tour operator if it provides access to a further provider through an online booking process, name, payment details and e-mail are transmitted, and the further contract is concluded within 24 hours of confirmation of the first service. The contracts are then treated as one package travel contract.
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