Um, you were happy enough with paying the price you bargained for when you made the booking, right? Are you somehow getting less value for that money than you thought you would get? It seems to me that you agreed to be bound to pay that price in exchange for the hotel promising to hold the room for you even in the event that demand went UP and they could find someone else to rent it to for a higher price. Backing out now because that didn't happen is about as fair as wanting your insurance money for the last year back because your house didn't actually burn down!

That is somewhat true, however the hotel said that this is the best price for the room, they stated that there are only 3 rooms left (to rush me into booking) and they stated that there is a 10% discount on that. Now they state the same, but with 5% more discount (the price went down 30% compared to the last booking, that is not even close to 5%) In my point of view it looks like i have made a reservation when a store told me that it is the best price, and only 3 more products are left, and then they sell a few products, change the price to 30% less and still state there are 3 left

@Wojtek Possibly other customers on more expensive flexible bookings cancelled, leaving the hotel then with more rooms free than the expected?

That is very possible but still leaves me feeling a bit cheated and treated unfairly :( Shouldn't that entitle me for a price change ?

When you say "site" - do you mean the official hotel property website, or some aggregator/seller like hotels.com?

If the price went up, would you agree to pay them more?

If you booked on booking.com, they constantly say that they have only 3 (or 1) rooms left -- the hotel is free to make another available to booking once one of them is gone...

Have you contacted them by phone and asked about simply adding a day to the booking yet? (Melia has reservation offices all over the globe) Or did you just start complaining about being cheated? As you are not cancelling, but rather adding one day, they might have simply updated your booking without any penalties. And as has happened to me in the past, revised the overall cost to match the current price for that room category. But if your emails have only been demands and complaints, then you may have built a wall.

It is also possible that the addition of that one day moved your booking into a difference price category. Many hotels have price breaks if you book certain days of the week, such as including a Saturday night stay at business oriented hotels or a mid-week stay at a tourist resort.

Are you sure you have a 100% cancellation/change fee? Usually when a fare is fully non-refundable, you pay everything upfront.

Most likely, they didn't say "Only 3 rooms available", but "Only 3 rooms available at this price". I.E., 3 rooms available in that price block.

What currency did you use for the booking? It's possible they didn't change their prices in their base currency, apart from adding the 15% discount, but the apparent price, in your currency, changed due to fluctuations in the currency market.

@HenningMakholm I suspect that the hotel's terms of service reserved them the right to cancel OP's reservations and rebook the rooms - and they would do it if the price was right.

@Octopus He asked if he was getting less value than what he thought he was getting when he purchased the room rate, not if he was getting less value than other customers are getting.

@emory What? I've never seen such a thing in T&Cs and I've never heard of a hotel cancelling a booked reservation in order to sell the room to someone else at a higher price. Do you have an example of T&Cs with such a clause?

You could cancel and do a charge-back, but you certainly wouldn't want to then try to re-book at the same hotel. If you want to stay at this hotel, the best you could do is write a very polite letter asking if they might consider dropping the price.

@reirab I don't typically read t&c. thistle.com/group/terms_and_conditions.html is the first thing I found in a google search. if I read the OP correctly, he has not given the hotel any money yet. The t&c says: "No Booking shall be treated as confirmed until the details and/or payment/deposit described in this paragraph have been provided." But if he had given them money, it later says "Very occasionally we may need to cancel your Booking. In such circumstances you will be given a full refund but we shall have no further liability to you arising out of such cancellation"

@reirab I am not in the hotel business, but if I were: I would try to honor reservations as much as possible, but if someone is willing to give me $1,000 per night for the room you reserved for $100 per night. I am going to refund you your $100 and take that $1,000. Money talks.

@reirab I first became aware of this phenomena when I was waiting for a flight. They asked for volunteers to be bumped (they put you on a later flight and give you some freebies). I checked online and found that you could still buy tickets for my flight (but the price was much, much higher). The airline did not really have a problem with overbooking. They just saw an opportunity to make more money.

@emory Airlines do overbook because they expect some people to cancel at the last minute or not show up. In the case that they guess wrong and the flight is actually overbooked, they can ask for volunteers to take a later flight with extra compensation (a.k.a. "voluntary denied boarding") or, if no one volunteers (which I've never personally seen happen, but I suppose is possible,) they'll have to select someone to take off (a.k.a. involuntary denied boarding.)

@emory In the case of involuntary denied boarding, the airline is (at least in the U.S.) required by law to provide alternate transportation to the destination that arrives within 1 hour of the originally scheduled time or else compensate the passenger 200% of their fare if they can get them there within 2 hours of the schedule or otherwise 400% of the fare. See 14 CFR 250.5.

@emory I'm not aware of any such legal allowance for hotels, though, nor have I ever heard of any hotel cancelling someone's reservation in order to sell it to someone else. Hotels that did that would get an awful reputation and I'm not sure that it's even lawful in most countries.

@emory As a side note, if a passenger is involuntarily denied boarding on an airline flight on a flight where the passenger was traveling for free (e.g. mileage redemption, etc.) the lowest fare paid by a paying passenger is used for the above minimum compensation requirements.

@emory Hmm... So, after a little digging, it looks like hotels do sometimes also do this, though they are likely to be considered in breach of contract. Apparently (at least in the U.S.) there's not a specific rule governing this like there is with airlines. Theoretically, you could perhaps take them to small claims court for breach of contract for any damages you incurred (e.g. higher cost of close-in booking, other non-refundable expenses already paid,) but that would be expensive.