Best Western sells blocks of rooms to third parties like Reservations.com, who can resell them and impose undisclosed cancellation policies different from Best Western's. In this case the reservation was clearly cancellable within 48 hours. I cancelled four days in advance. Both the hotel (Caprock Inn) and Best Western confirmed the cancellations and that I had NOT BEEN CHARGED. Yet the reservations.com charge is on my credit card. Reservations.com sent a BS email about how it was the hotel that refused a refund, the cancellation was less than 72 hours before check in, etc. A half dozen reasons, none of which were disclosed during the reservation process, none of them true or policies of either Best Western or Caprock Inn. Just lies. Laughably, that email was sent four days before the check in date. Last time I checked that was more than 72 hours.
Neither Best Western nor Caprock Inn made the charge, so they can't refund it.
So neither the family business that runs Caprock Inn nor Best Western got anything out of this. All the money went to reservations.com, not just a fee, all of it.