Hotel overcharged credit card

highlandseoghan

We booked a hotel through a well known website. We paid the deposit to the website and upon arrival at the hotel we paid the balance and the city tax by credit card. We have now noticed the hotel has taken a further payment from our card. We are not getting much response from the hotel and dont know what to do. I will be contacting my bank on Monday but I just wondered if anyone has any advise on whats best to do to get this money back.

Calls and emails seem to be a waste of time and the hotel is in amsterdam and we are now back in Ireland so dropping into the hotel isnt an option.

Firstly they said it was a pre authorisation, then they said it was a mistake with the booking website and now they said nothing to do with them it must be a bank mistake. What is the best thing I can do to get this money back.

L1011

A hotel charging city tax separately rather than price-integrated in Amsterdam always raises alarm bells for me in the first place. Is the second charge the same as one of the other charges (deposit/rest) or different?

sandin

Sounds like a pre-auth for any other services you may use during your stay. If you used a debit card it can show as a charge.

Check the credit card issuer and they'll be able to tell you.

dudara

Ring your credit card provider and ask if they can provide any extra information on the transaction. They might be able to see a little more info in their system.

If the hotel in Amsterdam is not responding, keep all a record of all conversations and consider a chargeback.

Funny though, the Dutch are usually quite good at particulars. It might be worth getting on the phone to the hotel.

highlandseoghan

Thanks for all the feedback. The money thats missing is different amount than any we paid. At first they said it was a pre authorisation. What is this pre authorisation this is the first hotel we stayed in that ever said anything about pre authorisation. First thing Monday ill get onto the bank and see what they say.

Im going to ring the hotel again today and see if I can speak with someone in charge.

Miaireland

Have you looked at trip advisor/booking.com reviews for the hotel? There might have been others who ran into the same problem and posted it in there review. It might give you some idea what happened.

L1011

highlandseoghan wrote: »

Thanks for all the feedback. The money thats missing is different amount than any we paid. At first they said it was a pre authorisation. What is this pre authorisation this is the first hotel we stayed in that ever said anything about pre authorisation. First thing Monday ill get onto the bank and see what they say.

Im going to ring the hotel again today and see if I can speak with someone in charge.

A pre-auth is extremely common in hotels on the continent, less so here but it does still occur - its a cash reservation secured against the card to cover any purchases charged to the room; it doesn't actually get taken and eventually expires anyway if not actively cancelled.

If you use a current account based 'credit card' e.g. a Visa Debit card, it will appear as cash that's gone whereas on a normal credit card it just appears as a reduced credit limit.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

R.D. aka MR.D

i had a problem with a hotel just straight up stealing money from me in the US. I'm with Ulster Bank and have to say that they were more than helpful.
They connected me to the visa debit section in England and the guy explained everything to me, they sent me a form and i filled it in and sent it back to them. Got my 200euro back, no problem.

As another poster said, i would never use my visa debit for a hotel transaction again because of what happened. It was all sorted in the end but it could have been less hassle if i had used a different method.

highlandseoghan

Thank you everyone for all your replies. Dropped into the bank today and just had to fill in a form and attach it with a statement and gave them a copy of the emails. Can take upto 60 days to get it resolved but the bank is dealing with it and were very supportive. Thanks again for all the advise.