Why do Hotels swipe your card on arrival...

APV1

Afternoon all!

I'm the General Manager of an hotel in Telford and I have been trying to advise another MSE, regarding an unauthorised charge to her debit card:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=19701565#post19701565

It is apparant that many (possibly most!) hotels do not explain the "Pre-Authorisation" process to guests on arrival. Maybe this will help...

On arrival, your card would be "Pre-Authorised". This means money is set aside by your card issuer and allocated to the hotel. This should be enough to cover all accommodation costs, taxes and a little for extras (depending on the hotel, this last bit can vary - we put on about £25 per night, to cover meals, drinks, films, etc).
On departure, the hotel would use this pre-auth to settle your bill. If they had pre-authed £200 and your bill came to £150, the remaining £50 would be released. It is then your card issuer's policy that dictates how long this will take to return to your available funds and can be up to 10 working days.
This should have been explained clearly to you at check-in, as otherwise these problems arise. It should also be in print on or near the Reception desk.

However, in the future, you might want to consider paying for the accommodation on arrival in full and ask to be put on a "Cash Only" basis - for any extras, you have to pay at the time of service, rather than running a "tab" - your room bill - and paying on departure. That way, you will always know exactly where you are.

This policy is common-place in the industry and has been brought about by dishonest people leaving hotels and not paying - a real example of "once bitten, twice shy". I am certainly not suggesting that anyone reading this is dishonest - quite the opposite - but thought you might like to know why hotels do this.

If you need more help, just ask!

omelette451

Is there any particular type of hotel this applies to or is it all of them? Right down to the Travelodge/Holiday Inn types?

welshmoneylover

APV1 wrote: »

Afternoon all!


This policy is common-place in the industry and has been brought about by dishonest people leaving hotels and not paying

Wow, do people really do this?
Swines, why don't they pay like everyone else?

Blue264

welshmoneylover wrote: »

Wow, do people really do this?
Swines, why don't they pay like everyone else?

This behaviour is incredibly common and we all suffer because of it. You really wouldn't believe how many times a week I deal with this scenario.

I've worked on both sides of the 'fence'...inhouse res / reception / night audit and for a Worldwide travel company. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I have spoken on the phone to APV1 within the last few years in my business capacity and can vouch for the information this member gives as being totally accurate in my experience.

From an inhouse res perspective, we will do all we can to recoup the cost of a stay if the guest checks out without settling their bill. Even if the credit card used as guarantee has a transaction limit of 50p, we will make all the transactions necessary to recoup the cost (I have actually been in that situation and it took several hours to achieve).
From a business travel perspective, if a guest checks out without paying, that information will be fed back to the original booker and, if necessary, their department manager, until payment has been made to the hotel.
I don't imagine that this type of behaviour reflects too kindly on the employee concerned and will be noted by their employer.

As for holding funds from a card...this has been common practice in the States for many years. In fact, the only time I have ever had a personal credit card is when I have been visiting the States as they can actually refuse to let you check in if you do not produce a credit card as guarantee.

From a domestic, inhouse res point of view, the impact is this...
As a general rule of thumb (but every hotel is different), if the hotel has a check-in time of 14:00, bookings that are taken as 'cash payment only' may be released for resale at 16:00, or if the hotel is lenient, 19:00hrs.
Bookings guaranteed to a debit card may be treated the same as the hotel will only have access to the funds actually in the guest's account on the date of check out.
If a booking is guaranteed to a credit card, the booking is usually guaranteed for late arrival up until 03:00 of the following day as this is when the hotel will poll their EFT receipts (card payment log).

Part of my job when I was on night reception was to check through all the incoming bookings to see what payment method had been used as guarantee. Only if a credit card was used, was the booking status changed to 'definate'.
So, my top tip to everyone is, if you haven't guaranteed your booking to a credit card, keep the hotel you have booked informed of your expected arrival time and ask them to note this on your reservation. If you get stuck in traffic or are running late, please give the hotel a quick courtesy call so that they don't release your room for resale to a 'walk-in' guest.
That way, everyone is happy.

omelette451

Blue264 wrote: »

From an inhouse res perspective, we will do all we can to recoup the cost of a stay if the guest checks out without settling their bill. Even if the credit card used as guarantee has a transaction limit of 50p, we will make all the transactions necessary to recoup the cost (I have actually been in that situation and it took several hours to achieve).

Yet surprisingly they're never this keen, ready or quick to process a refund or compensation if they make a mistake and/or offer have to offer compensation because their hot water system crashes or whatever...

sturll

Ive noticed more and more recently - particularly in the US that Hotels are adding extras on like free local calls - that are mandatory, room cleaning fees, safe hire, wifi etc...

Its a rip off.

Blue264

omelette451 wrote: »

Yet surprisingly they're never this keen, ready or quick to process a refund or compensation if they make a mistake and/or offer have to offer compensation because their hot water system crashes or whatever...

Very true.

Hotel booking agents do pick up on this and will steer their clients in the direction of hotels that behave properly in this respect without disrespecting the hotels concerned when possible, because it may have been a glitch on their reputation brought about by certain employees rather than the hotel as a whole. Being brutally honest, I can count on my fingers the number of hotels that I would honestly advise clients to steer clear of and this is always based upon serious causes for concern that have been raised with the hotels' management.

At the end of the day, we all want guests to have a trouble free stay with the mimimum of fuss and bother. From a business travel perspective, it's bad enough that clients have to stay away from home due to work commitments, so will always strive to accommodate them in a hotel that provides that little bit extra. From a leisure travel point of view, clients are spending their hard earned money to have a pleasurable experience that should exceed what they have at home.

The vast majority of hotels that I deal with will process a refund whilst I am still on the phone call and then it is solely down to the card company when the funds actually hit the client's account and believe me, that can also vary quite dramatically.
When a problem has arisen inhouse, please raise this with the hotel duty manager at the time so that they have opportunity to put the situation right and provide compensation during the stay as there's so much red tape involved when a situation comes to light after the guest has checked out.
Again, I couldn't begin to count how many times I have been authorised to waive the guest's bill when a situation has arisen during the stay, or have given free breakfasts/dinners/ etc...

In fact, I have probably had a good example of this as a guest myself and the hotel's manager behaved in an amazingly gracious fashion.
On the morning of my wedding, I noticed that the floor in my hotel bedroom was wet. I politely raised this with reception on my way to breakfast and they said they would investigate immediately.
Before I left breakfast, I was advised that there was a 'problem' with the plumbing in my room and that I had been allocated another room in the hotel. So I returned to my room to find the hotel staff running round like headless chickens and was advised to grab my belongings quickly. I peeked into the bathroom to see a 3ft fountain of sewage spewing out of the tiny drain grid in the bathroom floor and it was rapidly approaching where my wedding dress was hanging on the side of the wardrobe despite the wall of towels that the staff had built to stem the flow!

When I had gathered my belongings and safely decamped to the new room, I had a call from reception asking me to take lunch and drinks 'on the house' in the hotel restaurant. Suffice to say, I was half cut when I it actually came time to take my wedding vows...but there you go! It was a stressful situation...

When the wedding party returned to the hotel for the reception, the hotel owner greeted me with the news that the reception was also 'on the house', and he joined us for most of the night to drown his sorrows, I think.

It turned out that another guest on the same floor had broken a glass in their room and decided to flush the remnants down the toilet. As I had booked a corner dual aspect room, the broken glass had stuck on the corner of the drainage system which caused all the raw sewage from that floor to backflow into my bathroom. Also, as I was married on a bank holiday, the cost of calling out a plumber to rectify the problem had actually cost the hotel double the cost of my reception!

The moral of the (true) story is that poop happens! You don't expect it to be exploding out of the bathroom floor, but poop does happen and there's nowt as strange as folk.
I did return to that hotel for my first wedding anniversary and got verilly drunk with the hotel owner as we had a good laugh about the events of the previous year.
And that is how a really good hotel stays in business year after year after year...

chuckley

never happened to me!

APV1

Wise words, Blue264 - glad your dress was saved. I've been around long enough to have my fair share of dramas too!

The trick, from a manager's point of view, is to listen. Find out what the problem is and deal with it appropriately. In this instance, the issue was getting another room, somehwre to enjoy the weekend (the plumbing was the hotel's issue - not the guests).

If you experience issues witht a stay, report it immediately. Try to stay calm - a defensive manager is less likely to empathise, than a calm one!

Obukit

APV1 wrote: »

If you experience issues witht a stay, report it immediately. Try to stay calm - a defensive manager is less likely to empathise, than a calm one!

Totally agree with this. If a guest has a problem (and, let's face it, no matter how good a hotel is there's inevitably going to be problems from time to time) then we ask them to report it straight away so we can do our best to fix it. If, by doing this, we inconvenience the guest, we offer them appropriate compensation. If we can't fix it, we comp the stay.

We don't offer compensation when guests stay the night then come down next morning, make a complaint and expect money off their bill because, in my experience, 90% of these are chancers and I don't want them as return guests anyway - and it has got worse recently with Travelodge et al. offering promises that if you make any complaint you get a refund :rolleyes:.