The photographs were doing a great deal of work.

Not as described is the most commonly upheld ground in a card dispute, and it turns almost entirely on a screenshot most guests never take.

Read this first

Screenshot the listing today. They edit them.

The listing as it stood on the day you booked is the description you contracted on, and it is also the piece of evidence most likely to vanish. Properties and platforms revise photographs, amenity lists, room descriptions and rate terms routinely, and once the page changes you are describing something nobody else can see. Capture the whole page, not a crop: the photographs, the amenity list, the room type name, the inclusions, the rate terms and the date. Do it before you send your first complaint, not after it, because the first complaint is what prompts someone to go and look at the page.

What you are owed

A refund, or the difference between what you paid and what you got

The remedy is proportionate to the gap. A sea view room facing a service yard is a partial refund. A room advertised with air conditioning that has none, in August, may be the whole night. Claim the accurate figure: an overclaim invites a rejection of everything, including the part that was solid. And be honest with yourself first, because a non-refundable rate where the property delivered exactly what it sold is not a claim, however much you disliked the stay.

The cost of the alternative, if it was bad enough to leave

If you left and booked elsewhere, the difference in rate, the transport and any night you paid for twice are legitimate parts of the claim. A mitigation receipt also strengthens a card dispute considerably, because it shows you acted reasonably rather than banking a grievance.

Fees charged for facilities that were not there

A resort fee is charged for the resort. If the pool was drained, the spa was shut, the restaurant was closed or the gym was a locked door, the fee for them is separate from the room rate and should be demanded separately and by name. It is a small, clean, specific number, which is exactly the kind of demand that gets paid quickly.

How they will refuse, and what answers it

“The photographs are representative, not of your specific room.”

Then ask which room they represent, and what the material difference is. Representative covers a different bedspread. It does not cover a missing balcony, a different room type, a view that is not there, or an amenity that does not exist.

“The closure was noted on our website.”

Ask them to produce the notice as it was displayed on the date you booked, with its date. A notice added afterwards is not a disclosure. Your screenshot is the whole answer to this refusal, which is why it is taken first.

“You stayed the full booking, so it cannot have been that bad.”

Staying is mitigation, not acceptance, particularly where nothing else was available at short notice. It does move the claim from a full refund to a partial one, and what closes that gap is having reported the problem in writing while you were still there.

Gather this before you write

□Full-page screenshots of the listing exactly as displayed when you booked, including the amenity list, room type and rate terms, with the date visible
□The booking confirmation showing room type, inclusions and the total paid
□Dated photographs and video of what was actually provided, shot from the same angles as the listing images wherever you can manage it
□Your written report to the property during the stay, with its timestamp and any case or ticket number
□Anything they wrote back that acknowledges the difference, quoted verbatim rather than paraphrased
□Receipts if you left and paid for something else

Now make them answer.

Tell us what happened in your own words. We write the letters, set the deadlines, and email each escalation on the day it is due.