Pending transaction affecting credit limit

Mags50

I booked flights last weekend costing £5,500 using my Barclaycard. Today I tried to use my card online and it was declined. On contacting Barclaycard I was told that they give a merchant 7 days to process a payment, after which time it will be declined. Now, the bit I don't understand is that the payment to the airline is showing on my transactions processed but there is also a £5,500 transaction pending. This will drop off after 7 working days, ie next week - there is no danger of a second payment being made. In the meantime we are way over our limit because of this 'pending' payment, hence the card being declined. How does this make sense?
I spoke to the airline and they said they put a charge against the card but this drops off when the payment is authorised so there doesn't appear to be an issue with them.
Has anyone experienced this? We are trying to get our card limit increased just until next week so that we can use our card but are having difficulty with that.

MallyGirl

I had the same with BA flights on an AMEX. It took a few days to sort itself out - BA said they wouldn't do anything, AMEX said they couldn't do anything but noted that I had called and agreed that I wouldn't get impacted in any way for going over my limit. I was worried about losing my 0% deal as I was over by £1500.

Westminster

I see this on my BA Amex fairly regularly - so I had my limit raised to give some header space for all these pending transactions!

Ben8282

You are NOT 'way over your limit' as this pending transaction is not included in your balance, only deducted from your available credit. The duplicate transaction is an authorisation only at this stage unless the airline actually debits your card twice, which would then become a whole different problem. At the present time you have nothing to worry about with regards to being over your limit.
You are correct. The authorisation should have dropped off when the charge was debited to your account. Why this has not happened in this case is unclear. Is there any reason that you could think of why two authorisations could have been requested? Normally there is very little the credit card issuer can do about this as they have authorised the second amount and to cancel the authorisation now and let you spend more would put them at risk should the second amount actually be debited.
The airline does have the ability to cancel the authorisation though and, if you are sure there is no reason that you could think of for the double authorisation, you should complain bitterly to them at the degree of inconvenience they have caused you due to the significant amount involved.

Ben8282

Re: Amex comments.
This is why many people who regularly purchase high value air tickets prefer to use charge cards rather than credit cards. Any such pending transactions then pose no such problems.

agrinnall

Ben8282 wrote: »

Re: Amex comments.
This is why many people who regularly purchase high value air tickets prefer to use charge cards rather than credit cards. Any such pending transactions then pose no such problems.

BA Amex is a credit card.

System

Or pick a (decent) airline that doesn't do this..!

Ben8282

agrinnall wrote: »

BA Amex is a credit card.

Yes I know. That is why I suggested that those who are encountering this problem with AMEX credit cards (not the OP) may be better off using AMEX charge cards.