I booked my hotel reservation online, and they charged the full amount for my stay to my credit card in advance. That's new to me; usually they just run an authorization, and don't actually run the charge until you arrive (or depart)?
When I noticed this in my online banking account status, I looked at the confirmation that Holiday Inn emailed me. Sure enough, it says that to qualify for some special rate, it had to be prepaid, and was NON-REFUNDABLE in the event of cancellation OR changes.
That might have been in the fine print on the web site, but I didn't see it, and I'm not at all happy about it. I didn't intend to pay them two months in advance, and I might want to change my return date.
Besides which, they charged me $112+tax per night, rather than the $99 HCC2007 rate. (I'd tried to book the reservation by phone to get that rate, but when that didn't work I used the web site instead.)
Update, 2-AUG-2007:
The manager changed my reservation to the correct rate and refunded the undesired prepayment.
I'd suggest that everyone make their reservations by phone rather than online, to avoid such problems.
Edited: 2 Aug 2007, 1:52 p.m. after one or more responses were posted