Hotel Pre Auths

paulmcerlean

Hi,

Just been asked a question by a colleague and I dont have an answer:

She stayed in a hotel at the weekend and the hotel pre authorised her card for £50 - pretty normal in my experiences.

However her bill at the end of her stay came to £19 which was debited from her card at the end of her stay.

She has just told me the £19 is showing on her online banking but the hotel have not returned the £50 they asked the bank to authorise. It is still showing as missing from her balance.

Anyone any ideas how long it takes for the money to be released back onto her card?

bengal-stripe

paulmcerlean wrote: »

She stayed in a hotel at the weekend ....her bill at the end of her stay came to £19...

Gosh, that’s a cheap hotel!

The pre-authorisation is likely to show only on the ‘available balance’, not on the proper balance as the charge (hopefully) will not have gone through and will fall off after five or seven days.

If your colleague runs such a tight account that fifty pounds not available to spend for the next few days would cause her difficulties, she should contact her bank.

paulmcerlean

She paid the room up front the £19 was for drinks! :beer:

I was thinking that myself, its only £50, but its not really my position to share such an opinion with her...

JenniferF

£50 is a lot of money to some people.

I would say it's not your positon to judge / hold that opinion rather than share it...

bengal-stripe

JenniferF wrote: »

£50 is a lot of money to some people.

If that's the case, they should not be spending 19 quid on drinks.

JenniferF

ha ha - very true...

(Although in my case...it's because I'll spend £19 on drinks that £50 is a lot to me!! :rotfl:)

paulmcerlean

JenniferF wrote: »

ha ha - very true...

(Although in my case...it's because I'll spend £19 on drinks that £50 is a lot to me!! :rotfl:)

I think this is her situation too (she is not in a very well paid role within the company) and it is close enough to payday to be budgeting.

I will tell her it should be there in a few days then

Mikeyorks

The pre-authorisation should not go to the account. Any organised hotel will retain it in-house until checkout. Then when they process the £19 .... they should have overwritten / voided the £50.

The £50 depends which Bank, as they're not consistent ..... but Halifax (for eg) it will take up to 10 working days. Or she can ring the hotel and get them to void it ..... assuming she can get hold of a staff member who knows how to?

paulmcerlean

Intersting - so these thing do not come off automatically.

Mikeyorks

Yes - they do.

They've put the pre-authorisation all the way through to the Bank - so it's been authorised (as opposed to pre-authorised .. where they retain it in-house) - and it's therefore come off the 'available'. So the Bank account is expecting a debit of £50 to arrive.

When it doesn't - the Bank software will get fed up of waiting and take the reserve off. That period should be around 10 working days - but some Banks do it sooner.

lovefreebie

As far as I am aware even for a pre-authorisation the money is blocked for the hotel to ensure they do get the money. When the person checked out, if they used the same cc terminal it should recognise that the system is already holding £50 and use pre-auth. code, rest of the money goes back to account then. However if they do have various cc terminals & used a different one at check-out, they would need to manually input the authorisation first held.
As mentioned by other posters, usually it takes 5 to 7 days for money to go back on the account, however even if she does call the hotel & they cancel pre-auth, it will still take a few days to come through :mad:
(worked in hotels for years)