Hotel Cancellation Fail

I had a reservation at a Holiday Inn Express last week for Thursday and Friday.  On Monday I received a call saying they were unable to honor my reservation so I made a reservation at another hotel.

On Thursday I got 2 more calls from the hotel reinforcing that they were unable to honor my reservation (and adding that it was due to flood damage at the hotel).  Then today I checked my credit card statement and I was billed for 1 night for failure to cancel.

Step 1: address this with the hotel directly and have them reverse the charge.
Step 2: get American Express involved to reverse the charge.  Hopefully I won’t have to do this, but American Express always comes through for me and they have a nice online dispute form.

I have saved voicemails stating the hotel was unable to honor my reservation so hopefully this resolves itself quickly.