Buying a flight with your credit card?: WARNING!!

Volcano

Recently booked a flight with Opodo. Received confirmation by email so went ahead and booked hotels etc.

Got an email the next day saying that my CC had been refused! Panicked a bit but phoned the CC company (LloydsTSB) who said "as you've not used your card much we've had to refuse that transaction" !!

After a bit of conversation the phone monkey let slip that it's been a routine thing of theirs to refuse CC purchases of flights due to some scam that's doing the rounds! I've since also heard from someone else who this happened to.

Why did they let this transaction through (to Opodo's satisfaction) then refuse it? Luckily Opodo were able to book me on the same flight as they still had seats so I haven't lost anything re. hotels etc.

Has anyone else had this happen recently? If your thinking of using your CC just bear this in mind. My Lloyds debit card was accepted with no problems.

sinizterguy

I have had no problems using my cards (Egg and Barclaycard) to book flights. My most recent booking was for over 1500 and it went through fine.

In fact, I wouldnt book flights on anything but my credit card.

But to be safe, it would be best to check with your credit card before confirming it.

photome

Never had problems with either barclaycard or post office credit cards booking flights

N9eav

Looking at Volcano's post, this would seem to be a bank thing not a flight thing. I did have a card bounce once on booking a flight, but that was because I had mis-entered the card number on the website. They phoned me up and we sorted it out.

littlereddevil

I have had the bank do this to me 3 times with airline network. Got it sorted eventually after 3 lots of £1500 had been taken off my credit card but not paid to airline network. In fact it said the booking did not go through!!

floyd

Volcano wrote: »

Has anyone else had this happen recently? If your thinking of using your CC just bear this in mind. My Lloyds debit card was accepted with no problems.

It happened to me with my Egg card recently when I tried to book a holiday. Fortunately I was making the booking over the phone so they called me back within 10 minutes, quite embarassed, saying that my card had been declined. I had to phone Egg up and authorise the transaction then call back the company.
The lady at Egg said it was because I very rarely use my card and even then its only £20 max so when a tranaction for £1500 went on the warning lights started flashing!!!! :eek:

Glad I am so predictable and boring :rotfl:

NotreDame

Have booked loads of flights on net, using a Lloyds TSB credit card and never had a problem. Last time was a month ago - went through no problem.

M4RKM

I think this is more a case of how often and what values you use your card for, rather than who your card is with..

if you don't use the card, and a huge transaction suddenly appears, then warnings are around regarding fraud. the card is declined.

So, before spending a huge amount on a card that you never really use, call them, and make sure that they are aware of a large transaction about to go through.. this means it should do with no problems..

quite like the whole i'm going abroad, so don't decline my transactions... which reminds me i need to call my card companies to tell them

sinizterguy

floyd wrote: »

It happened to me with my Egg card recently when I tried to book a holiday. Fortunately I was making the booking over the phone so they called me back within 10 minutes, quite embarassed, saying that my card had been declined. I had to phone Egg up and authorise the transaction then call back the company.
The lady at Egg said it was because I very rarely use my card and even then its only £20 max so when a tranaction for £1500 went on the warning lights started flashing!!!! :eek:

Glad I am so predictable and boring :rotfl:

Maybe mine went through because I use my Egg card on a daily basis for normal day-to-day purchases and I put through some high value transactions quite regularly too.

Problem is credit card companies dont seem to be consisten with what they let through and what they dont.

moonrakerz

I am a complete and utter cynic when it comes to the way the banks behave, it wouldn't surprise me if the aim was to get Volcano to use his debit card, so that if there was any subsequent fraud on that card the money would come from his account not the bank's !! :rolleyes:

Volcano

Thanks for the replies. I'm guessing the problem might be that I don't use it often enough, so much for saving them for emergency use only eh?

Moonrakerz may have a point, whatever it certainly forced me to use my debit card.