Moral not to turn up at hotel booking?

PaulC5

I believe I've got the chance to make a second booking for the exact same hotel, room and dates for a holiday coming up in January and save £300.

Here's the details.

I made a booking a few months back through booking.com on the basis the hotel takes full payment straight away. Since the booking no payment has been taken from my credit card. When I contacted the hotel by email to confirm my booking and question the payment, they confirmed my booking and said they would take payment shortly.
A month later and still no payment taken but I had a none related payment taken for something else that wasn’t made by myself so I immediately cancelled my card and it turned out to be a fraudulent purchase, and a refund was made.

I now believe that the hotel can’t take payment for my original booking as they have no valid card details but haven’t made any contact with me.

Having had a look at the hotel cost now, it is £300 cheaper than I booked a few month back, I could book it in my wife’s maiden name and just not turn up for my original booking.

Would it be moral to just not show up for my original booking and not pay for it?

agrinnall

I won't comment on the morality, but if you try it you'll find that eventually you will have paid twice simply because you have no understanding of the way credit cards work. Even though the card you used has been cancelled the cardholder account that sits behind the card number still exists, and your card issuer will simply link the payment request to that account which in turn will link it to your new card number. You could attempt to dispute that payment when it does come through but as the hotel will have proof that you made the booking they will win and they'll get their money.

peachyprice

agrinnall wrote: »

I won't comment on the morality, but if you try it you'll find that eventually you will have paid twice simply because you have no understanding of the way credit cards work. Even though the card you used has been cancelled the cardholder account that sits behind the card number still exists, and your card issuer will simply link the payment request to that account which in turn will link it to your new card number. You could attempt to dispute that payment when it does come through but as the hotel will have proof that you made the booking they will win and they'll get their money.

^^^^^ This exactly, cancelling the card DOES NOT mean they can't still take payment from the account the card was linked to.

PaulC5

Thanks for your advice.

I think it’s obvious I wasn't aware of this otherwise I wouldn’t of thought I could do it, would I!

bryanb

You could phone them and ask for the new price. Perfectly honest and moral.

PaulC5

agrinnall wrote: »

Even though the card you used has been cancelled the cardholder account that sits behind the card number still exists, and your card issuer will simply link the payment request to that account which in turn will link it to your new card number.

So cancelling your card wouldn’t actually stop any future fraudulent purchases being made as the "card issuer would simply link the payment request to that account."

DTDfanBoy

You can't get out of your legal obligations by preventing payment from being taken

PaulC5

DTDfanBoy wrote: »

You can't get out of your legal obligations by preventing payment from being taken

I have no intention of getting out of my legal obligation, I thought (and how wrong was I to think of that) they weren’t able to take payment now I’ve got different card details and thought (again how stupid of me) I could re-book at a lower price and it be ok.

Someone shoot me quick*

johnmcga

Agree with what others have said. Nothing to stop you calling the hotel to see if they'll honour the new price. Or perhaps you could claim under Booking.com's price guarantee thing. (I haven't read the details properly and haven't done this myself, but maybe it's worth a go.)

PaulC5

Will send them an email, it may cause some confusion as it’s a hotel in Phuket and there English wasn’t best in the confirmation email I received.

InsideInsurance

PaulC5 wrote: »

So cancelling your card wouldn’t actually stop any future fraudulent purchases being made as the "card issuer would simply link the payment request to that account."

Cancellations for fraud stop brand new transactions, they wont stop continuous payment authorities/ reoccuring transactions or requests for funds against prior authorisations.

Booking.com/ the hotel most likely will have already done a token authorisation to ensure it was a valid card. They can the use this authorisation to request the funds if the OP is a no show.