Question about credit card disputes (not poker related)

[GivenToFly]

I'm wondering if there are some people on here with some experience with credit card disputes. Here is my situation:

My friend reserved this campsite for two nights for a group of guys which costs 85 dollars a night. Don't ask me why it is this expensive! Recently, there have been some events that came up where some of the guys couldn't be able to make it (legit reasons) and we wanted to cancel the reservations. There policy is that if it is not canceled within 5 days of the reservation (we were around 4 days), then you pay full price no matter what. The lady we talked to was a MAJOR B, and wouldn't listen to or understand the circumstance. Nor was she willing to work with us to try to make it one night instead of two, and she wanted to charge us even more money to change to just the one night. Hence, he would be down 170 bucks or more.

Although I understand policies, I kind of feel my friend is being taken advantage of and ignored. My question is, can't he just dispute it on his credit card? My understanding is that since he hasn't gone to the campsite yet and signed for the payment, he hasn't authorized it yet and thus they wouldn't have proof of the authorization for the credit card company.

Also, I don't know if my friend "knew" about this policy when he made the reservation when he booked it. But if he did, how powerful are these "made up" policies. I mean, as far as I can see now, it is just on their website. How much legal power does something like that hold??

Any advice is appreciated. I don't want to do anything mean or unethical, but I want to know what options my friend has (if any).