Hotels4U.com left us stranded abroad

Jamie_Carter

meer53 wrote: »

If the transaction for the hotel was flagged as suspicious and they couldn't get hold of you, the transaction was probably declined by your bank because the addresses differred.

Not really the fault of H4U. Especially if they did email you and you didn't check before you went.

Actually it would most likely have just flagged up as a possible high fraud possibility, and not actually declined it. If it had declined, then it would have done this at the booking stage.

anteena1

thankyou for all the replies
they didnt even get to the stage of checking with the bank, all the other costs flights etc went through on that card, If they had of contacted them it would have gone through,
I know i gave them the correct phone number, they could have emailed me mon and not the day of and after i flew out.

anteena1

Looksguywalker wrote: »

Whilst what happened may be a bit annoying. I don't see that a great deal of harm was done.

in our party of 6 were 2 children and an oap - imagine having no credit card (all inclusive so didnt bring one) stranded in a foreign country with not enough money to pay for accomodation until our flights home. It was very distressing

wealdroam

anteena1 wrote: »

in our party of 6 were 2 children and an oap - imagine having no credit card (all inclusive so didnt bring one) stranded in a foreign country with not enough money to pay for accomodation until our flights home. It was very distressing

I know hindsight is wonderful, but I really cannot imagine a party of six people including two children and a pensioner going on holiday without a credit card.

Four* adults on a foreign holiday without a credit card between them... unbelievable.

Was it really luck that Barclays helped you, or was that part of your contingency planning?



*I know you said three adults in your original post, but I'm sure you meant to include the pensioner in that number.

somethingcorporate

Yep, 4 adults going on holiday to a foreign country and didn't have the smarts to take some spare cash and an emergency card?

Jamie_Carter

anteena1 wrote: »

thankyou for all the replies
they didnt even get to the stage of checking with the bank, all the other costs flights etc went through on that card, If they had of contacted them it would have gone through,
I know i gave them the correct phone number, they could have emailed me mon and not the day of and after i flew out.

Have you actually read my posts?

They don't need to contact the bank for it to be flagged with a high possible fraud score.

As for the phone number, the one they have would be the one you typed in on your PC when you booked. So it is most likely that you typed it wrong.

If you had given them the correct number, then they would most likely have called you. Then you would have explained the situation, and that may have put their mind at rest.

If anything was flagged up with a possible high fraud score, then I used to ring the merchant company. Then I would discuss with them what questions I should ask the customer, to see if they were genuine or not. If the phone number turned out to be wrong, then I would have cancelled the transaction also.

anteena1

the holiday was an allinclusive, it was a last minute so we could try and get the cheapest possible. i dont have a credit card my mum does but after booking the holiday there was no point bringing it. we had a small amount of cash - why would i need to bring loads of money on an AI??
the barclaycard was a debit card and with additions u get free insurance.
i really dont need comments about being not having smarts etc but thankyou to those that have explained the check proceedure

wealdroam

anteena1 wrote: »

...why would i need to bring loads of money on an AI??

No-one suggested bringing 'loads of money', did they?

Why might you need it... just in case an emergency situation arose.

Like perhaps covering the cost of emergency treatment after an accident... especially important with children I would've thought.

Like perhaps the booked hotel refusing to accommodate you... oh wait...

dalesrider

anteena1 wrote: »

the holiday was an allinclusive, it was a last minute so we could try and get the cheapest possible. i dont have a credit card my mum does but after booking the holiday there was no point bringing it. we had a small amount of cash - why would i need to bring loads of money on an AI??
the barclaycard was a debit card and with additions u get free insurance.

So does a AI holiday cover everything?

What would you have done if you lost your card?

How do you know they never contacted the bank.
When we get contacted by a retailer to double check a transaction (very rare) they tend to do these themselves.
General call center staff will not have access to our notes. Most would also have no idea if a retailer had contacted your bank or not as it would not be recorded.

arcon5

How much did you pay for the hotel through H4U and how much did you pay the hotel to stay on after it was cancelled?

To clarify again, they do not contact the bank to verify address. The merchant accoun performs an address verification check and returns the result as a match or non-match. The retailer goes on this. Although it would prudent for them to have t reject payments where address doesn't match.