Charges for a refund????

missk_2

Hi
Can someone please explain if this is right / normal.

I went on holiday and charged my hotel bill to my egg card. The hotel refunded the entire amount because they'd overcharged me and then they charged the card again with the correct amount.

Egg shows a charge for £738 a refund for £698 (on the same day about 5 mins apart) and then a new charge the next day for another amount. I contacted egg and they tell me that "Whenever you buy something in a foreign currency, there's also a 2.65% commission fee added to the exchange rate and purchase price. This fee is not refunded when the transaction refund is processed."

Can you believe this? I am being charged extra for something that was meant to be a refund to me in the first place. This surely cannot be right?
Any advice???
thanks in advance.

jamalfatty

Its 100% correct i'm afraid. You get charged for currency being converted, and this works from sterling to foreign currency and vice versa - both way rounds the money is being exchanged so both incur commission.

Egg may refund it as goodwill but they are not obliged to, only other option is to have the hotel reimburse you as there mistake initially for overcharging you.

Mozette

If you have a Nationwide credit card you don't get charged on foreign transactions, well worth having if you go away frequently.

Hazzanet

Also there's normally a difference between the buy and sell rate, so that also causes a difference.

simongregson

In the future, insist that the hotel 'reverses' the transaction, rather than 'refunding'. They should be able to do this until they run their end of day banking process on the credit card machine. The original amount then won't even be on your statement, just the correct charge.

missk_2

Hi all
Thanks for your responses. I'm thoroughly annoyed about it but thanks for the info anyway. I will know next time!

Thanks again.

selector_2

Has anyone had success of having the charges reversed by Egg or getting the hotel to reimburse the charges? I had exactly the same problem with a recent stay at a Westin using my Egg card and hence need to know where I should focus my effort! Thanks.