How do "Early Departure Fees" work when booking a Starwood hotel?

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An early departure fee is typically used as a revenue management instrument to prevent evasion of restrictions applied to bookings for fewer nights.

An example would be a refundable booking for several nights including lower pricing period which may be a weekend or a Saturday night in some hotels. Someone who wished to take advantage of a lower booking cost per night, would book a longer period than they wished and then cancel early and hope to retain the same cost per night.

This typically only applies to refundable bookings, as it doesn't make sense to charge an early departure charge if you have prepaid. However, it does sometimes apply to bookings made with loyalty points.

Each hotel chain or even hotel could have a different policy, so it is necessary to know the exact hotel before being able to advise exactly what is relevant to your case.

The early departure fee is often the cost of one night's stay. So if you booked for 7 nights and stayed 2, or 7 and stayed 4 you would pay for just one night extra than your actual stay, providing you comply with the notice period, e.g. 24 hours before checking out.

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First, it is highly unlikely, almost impossible, you would be changed an Early Departure Fee and forfeit the prepaid nights.

The Early Departure Fee is a form of revenue protection particularly for post-paid stays to cover cases where the booking is made with a lower long-term, convention or special rate but the number of nights you actually stay would only qualify for a higher 'regular' rate.

For comparison, it would be similar to booking a hidden city airline ticket.

Now, you might be able to get some money back if the re-priced post-paid rate leaves you with a credit from your pre-paid amount. I've never tried this but it's worth asking about when you check in.

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