what are the legalities of hotel bookings?

Technically, yes, as you entered into a contract with the hotel to stay for 2 nights. However, the hotel is under a legal duty, as in all allegations of breach of contract (which this is), to 'mitigate its loss', in the case of an hotel, to re let the room. If it was able to do that, then it cannot come on to you for the money you should have paid. It also cannot charge you for any meals that were included in the price, but not taken by you. Having said that, at one time in my career, I used to chase quite a lot of debts for hotels relating to cancelled bookings, but they don;t seem to happen so often these days. As with so many small debts it just isn't worth the cost of action.

Depends on the terms of the reservations, most hotels clearly state the terms of situations like these when you reserve the room to begin with. Did you reserve online or go in and say you wanted 2 nights?

You reserved the room for said number of days, so the hotel made it unavailable to others to reserve. Now, many people today do not wander into a hotel looking for a room and typically reserve them in advance. So even though the room is open technically you cost the hotel money because they would otherwise be able to list the room as available to rent to another would be customer.

If you reserved online you will likely have to pay something... if you walked in and rented the room on the spot you can likely get out of it unless you signed something stating otherwise.

You can look for hotel rate trackers on line to get help about room cancelations and price drops, these services help you understand hotel booking legalities and allows you to easily re-book a better deal

It depends upon the hotel. Some hotels have a 24hr cancelation policy, others have more. The reason is you have booked the room so they cant allow anyone else to also register for the room. By checking out early, you could potentially be costing them money because it is unlikely that they will get someone else to take your spot.

You have to pay for the night you stayed, obviously. For the other night, it depends on the terms of the contract you signed up to (so it's good you have an answer from a lawyer!) That should specify how far in advance you have to cancel. If you cancelled the second night later than that, then sorry, you have to pay for the night you didn't use.

relies upon on the reserving regulations on the time you booked. in case you provide them under 24hours word for many bookings you nonetheless ought to pay whether you probably did no longer use the room. So particular it could desire to correctly have been quite to be certain that them to fee you in case you probably did no longer provide them perfect word which you will not be desiring the room for the 2d night.

You usually only have to pay the first night, but it all depends on the booking agreement, some deals are non refundable.