Charged for a 'pay later' booking on hotels.com

sultryabyss

I booked a hotel on hotels.com for £94 for a stay in Berlin in August. It was definitely a 'pay later' booking. I've just gone through the whole booking again - as if making a booking, and it says the following;

"Pay at the hotel later
You will pay in the hotel's currency - EUR
£94
total including taxes & fees
You will not be charged until your stay at the hotel
Pay the hotel directly, Hotels.com will not charge you
Cancellation is free, right up to the hotel's cancellation window
Collect Welcome Rewards nights with this booking. Free nights and coupons can't be redeemed when you pay at the hotel"

Yet just checking my bank I've had a heart attack to find I am much less the balance than I was expecting. I rang my bank who told me that TRYP (the name of the hotel) took £97.97. When I told her that they shouldnt have taken the money yet she said that sometimes hotels will make a withdrawl on the account to check its not a dormant account and I should be credited the money back in 5-7 working days. But the hotels.com site said it wouldn't take payment! It also says at the bottom of the booking page:
"Please note
Unless otherwise stated in the room description, you will not be charged until you check out of the hotel.
We need your payment details to secure your booking. You won't be charged for your room until you check out of the hotel, but some hotels may charge a deposit ahead of your stay. Check your room description for more details."

I've checked the room description and hotel description, even hotels.com general T&C's - I've checked everywhere! It says nothing about being charged.

Luckily I selected a fully refundable room, so if they have taken the money I will just cancel and get a refund. I'm just angry because luckily I had money in there, if I didn't then my bank would have charged me. They have a duty to tell us if they are going to withdraw from our account surely?

I know 150% that I did not press to 'pay now' - I just know it. I check over things twice and thrice before confirming anything because I cannot afford to lose any money if things go wrong. I am a really diligent person.

Has anyone else had this same experience with or without hotels.com ??

sultryabyss

Follow up, I realised hotels.com had a 24/7 number so I rang them. Got through to a foreign lady who when I explained the situation just kept telling me 'dont worry your money is there, its fine'. When I asked her if they were just making a 'test payment' and if I'd be refunded she just said 'dont worry your money is there, you got cancellation, you can cancel get your money'. When I asked how long I should wait for it to be refunded before getting concerned she said 'dont worry, your money is there!'. I was getting irate at this point, so explained it again and she said hesitantly I should wait 2-3 days before saying 'dont worry! your money is there it's fine! have a nice day!'.

I do not feel at ease at all, and know that I will have to cancel this booking to get a refund and I have a feeling it's going to be a major ball ache trying to do so. I'm never using hotels.com again!

Bob_the_Saver

Have they taken the money or is it blocked on the account, (still there but not available to you)?

jpsartre

sultryabyss wrote: »

yet she said that sometimes hotels will make a withdrawl on the account to check its not a dormant account and I should be credited the money back in 5-7 working days.

If that's what has happened it isn't a regular charge. It hasn't happened to me at Hotels.com (I've only ever paid upfront with them) but I've had companies do a "mock" charge on my card on several occasions.

Incidentally, if the hotel made the charge you would be better of calling them about it, not Hotels.com.

sultryabyss

No the money is not available to me.

I will try to get in contact with the hotel now, thank you.

I'm just really annoyed that they would take the money without any notice, there really isn't anywhere on the website that says that's what they might do.

sultryabyss

After emailing the hotel and getting no reply, I decided to ring hotels.com again and got a slightly more helpful guy (though still foreign so couldn't understand what I was going on about really). He put me on hold while he rang the hotel and came back to say that they 'hold' the money in my account and then when I check out the funds are released. This made no sense. I said to him that if I was happy for the funds to be 'held' I might as well have paid for the hotel upon time of booking rather than choosing a book now pay later option. He couldn't understand where I was coming from so I just asked him to cancel the booking. The only other available decent hotel at the time I need is an extra £40 and I've had to book that.


So much stress for something that should be quite simple!

Now I have to wait for the refund to go back into my account. Why do I have a gut feeling that this part isn't going to be simple either...

zagfles

Presumably you weren't charged - ie you didn't see a charge from the hotel, just your available balance went down?

It unusual, they shouldn't really put a hold on the money so early, if they did a test transaction it would only be £1 or so. They are probably used to people using credit cards where it doesn't really matter (unless you're on the edge of your credit limit).

sultryabyss

I saw a decrease in my bank balance but it didn't show on my account. I have the money back now thankfully, but not after several phone calls to the hotel and my bank.

I have triple checked now, and it says nowhere on hotels.com that I will be charged.

I agree zagfles, I've only ever been charged £1 before for free trials of things but they took the entire amount.

Will definitely be sending off a complaint!

skylight

The money never actually went anywhere.

Its a bit like a pre-authorisation on your card/account. They have checked the card is genuine and used the whole booking amount to do this. It sort of "holds" the money to one side for a few days and then makes it available to you again.

Damn pain up the backside - Asda do this on their home deliveries and I have found it really infuriating when I cannot get to my money in my account.

photome

I understand where the OP is coming from and it maybe shouldnt have happened but if, as many think they only put a hold on the funds havent you(OP) cut off your nose to spite your face by cancelling a hotel that was £40 less than you are now paying?.

you still would have had the option to cancel the original booking at anytime up to 24 hours prior to stay so dont get why you didnt wait a while