Essence Hotel

I booked through Booking.com on May 1, 2026, while taking a train to Florence for an overnight stay May 1-2. The app had mistakenly set the dates as May 4-5. I caught it within an hour and contacted the hotel straight away to ask for a correction or cancellation. They refused. Booking.com then asked on my behalf for either the right dates or a cancellation, and offered to waive its fee, but the hotel still said no. The only option they later offered was changing the guest name, with no refund or date change. I also asked if I could move the booking to September and use it then. They refused that too. This was on May 1, before the May 4 stay began, and they’d known about the mistake within an hour. It seems like cancelling and reselling the room would have been easy. I’ve stayed in prepaid, non-refundable hotels in Italy before. Once work made me leave early, and the hotel refunded the unused night as a goodwill gesture. Essence Hotel showed no such flexibility. A name change is useless if you don’t know someone who’ll be in Florence on those exact dates. They’re rigid and the service was poor. They put money ahead of practical solutions, and I’ll tell other regular travellers I know, including my US friends heading to Florence, to avoid this hotel. They can keep my prepayment, but they’ve lost a future customer. This was a very poor example of hospitality in Florence. Let my experience warn anyone who might run into a problem during their stay. Screenshots of our conversations will follow.