Card declined- thought booking was cancelled and have been refused a refund

conormg

Hi,
I booked a hotel in Amsterdam recently for about April. I was a late addition to the trip and had to find my own accommodation.
I found a hotel and booked it. Shortly after my card was declined, as my bank blocked the transaction to ensure no fraud had taken place. I thought this had worked out in my favour as to be honest I decided there wasn't much point me going in the trip as I'd be separated from my friends and was a good half hour away from them. I got a message saying to provide a valid credit card within 24 hours to keep the booking so I ignored the message. I unblocked my card and then a couple days later realised they re-booked it without my knowledge. I've contacted the hotel and booking.com but the hotel is refusing to give me a refund despite me not knowing that they would re-booked it as it was non-refundable. The only thing they keep offering to do is change the date of my stay which is a bit pointless in all honesty as I don't see how that can help. It's not even like I could go with someone else as its a single room.
My main concern is getting a refund. Am I entitled to one and if so, what further action can I take? I hope someone can help as it's a lot of money going to waste.
Thanks

mgdavid

You booked.
You paid.
You changed your mind.
I cannot see any basis on which you can expect to cancel and get a refund.

Westin

Agree with mgdavid.

You owe the money to the hotel and you should take responsibility for your actions.

pendragon_arther

conormg wrote: »

Hi,
I booked a hotel in Amsterdam recently for about April. I was a late addition to the trip and had to find my own accommodation.
I found a hotel and booked it. Shortly after my card was declined, as my bank blocked the transaction to ensure no fraud had taken place. I thought this had worked out in my favour as to be honest I decided there wasn't much point me going in the trip as I'd be separated from my friends and was a good half hour away from them. I got a message saying to provide a valid credit card within 24 hours to keep the booking so I ignored the message. I unblocked my card and then a couple days later realised they re-booked it without my knowledge. I've contacted the hotel and booking.com but the hotel is refusing to give me a refund despite me not knowing that they would re-booked it as it was non-refundable. The only thing they keep offering to do is change the date of my stay which is a bit pointless in all honesty as I don't see how that can help. It's not even like I could go with someone else as its a single room.
My main concern is getting a refund. Am I entitled to one and if so, what further action can I take? I hope someone can help as it's a lot of money going to waste.
Thanks

How long after the credit card message did you unblock your card? If it after 24 hours I would think you're eligible for a refund.

Voyager2002

What exactly did you do to "unblock your card"? Because declining one transaction does not mean that other transactions are necessarily blocked... if you called your card company and asked them to allow the payment to go through, then you can hardly complain if they did as you asked! However, if they gave the impression that the suspect transaction would not go through then you have good reason to complain to the card company! I mean, if you were informed that a particular payment had failed and so you had no hotel room booked, you might well have made another booking!

Anyway, this is an issue with the card company rather than the hotel.

joerugby

If a card payment is rejected I would expect the hotel to try again

ThumbRemote

The hotel stated that unless the OP provided valid details within 24 hours, the booking would be cancelled. No such details were provided, therefore the booking is cancelled.

Contact your Credit Card provider and explain that this was an unauthorised transaction.

Westin

Contact your Credit Card provider and explain that this was an unauthorised transaction.

It is not an unauthorised transaction. The OP made the booking, accepted the T&C's - and 'authorised' the booking to be made.

There has to be a degree of responsibility taken by the OP when making a booking online (and ignoring follow up emails when there was a reported issue) without trying to push his error and failing on others.

Voyager2002

Westin wrote: »

It is not an unauthorised transaction. The OP made the booking, accepted the T&C's - and 'authorised' the booking to be made.

There has to be a degree of responsibility taken by the OP when making a booking online (and ignoring follow up emails when there was a reported issue) without trying to push his error and failing on others.

Disagree. The OP was entitled to rely on the information provided to him.

eDicky

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Disagree. The OP was entitled to rely on the information provided to him.

I think it may depend on how explicit the information was, whether the OP could take it as reliable and have a case. "Please provide alternate means of payment within 24hrs otherwise the booking will be cancelled" would be explicit, but the message as the OP writes it is probably not. No actual notice of cancellation was received.

My experience is that large hotels retain the booking and probably continue trying to take payment from the original card used to book, long after they have notified that payment must be arranged in order to keep the booking.

I would consider the chances of a refund from a Dutch hotel to be particularly low.

ThumbRemote

Westin wrote: »

It is not an unauthorised transaction. The OP made the booking, accepted the T&C's - and 'authorised' the booking to be made.

There has to be a degree of responsibility taken by the OP when making a booking online (and ignoring follow up emails when there was a reported issue) without trying to push his error and failing on others.

The OP made a booking and authorised payment. They were subsequently told that booking would be cancelled. Any subsequent attempt to take payment was not authorised by them.

Exactly what 'degree of responsibility' are you execting? The OP ignored nothing, made no error and no mistake. They did everything correctly. The simple fact is that the hotel said one thing and did another.