Hotel holding fee not refunded... AFTER 5 MONTHS

Mr_Underwriter

Nasqueron wrote: »

To reiterate a point made maybe a billion times on this forum


YOU DO NOT HAVE A CREDIT SCORE


The "score" given on Experian, Equifax and Call Credit is a made up number, NOBODY except you sees it, you will NEVER have an application for credit refused based on this score, whether it goes up or down or irrelevant.

The score in itself isn't used or seen by anyone other than the user. BUT, generally speaking for the masses it is INDICATIVE of how your file is viewed by the financial institutes, along with other variables, salary etc. and is therefore very RELEVANT

Dragonfly1

Also too late for the OP - I stay at IHG Hotels more often that I stay at home..... But Intercontintental would never put a holding charge of 500 euros on your card when you pay with IHG points. They would instead ask you what holding charge you would like and usually suggest 50-100 euros with further daily deductions depending on the previous night's expenses.

Obviously you had paid with IHG points & therefore - as others had suggested back in February - alarm bells would be immediately ringing and this should have been sorted in February.

Presumably you are Spire or Platinum Elite or Ambassador? You should phone the specific IHG hotline to your membership tier. Then - on the same day - follow this up with IHG via email stating the outcome of your conversation and your intention to proceed to court action if this has not been resolved within X weeks.

There's usually a room limit of 2 adults and you say she stayed "with a group of friends". Do you really have enough IHG points to pay for 2 or 3 rooms for a weekend as you sound quite IHG naive (no offence). Did the other rooms pay the cash rate? Any cash rate room would indeed have a holding deposit and it sounds like the hotel treated any and all rooms as cash in error (Did you friends ever get billed for their stay?). If the hotel believe you are family, they may merge all expenses i.e. the deposit etc into one room to present you ('the family') one bill upon checkout - hence the one holding deposit despite multiple rooms. I'd be fascinated to know if the other room ever got a bill. Otherwise why would Intercontinental be so reluctant to refund you to be honest.

EDIT: This was never a purely refundable deposit for your wife's room. It would have been 50 euros, 100 euros - hell even 500 euros as a refundable deposit. They took a deposit of 503 euros so that the other room had been 'paid' for at check-in... in case the other room didn't pay on check-out. Leading me back to my original question - did they pay on check-out? In short your wife should have let her friends pay the deposit on their room.

Nasqueron

Mr_Underwriter wrote: »

The score in itself isn't used or seen by anyone other than the user. BUT, generally speaking for the masses it is INDICATIVE of how your file is viewed by the financial institutes, along with other variables, salary etc. and is therefore very RELEVANT

No it isn't. In any way


Bankrupts can get a 999 rating on Experian. Someone with a mid range score can get the top cards.



If the scoring is so important, why don't you borrow from Experian if they rate you well, you won't have any issues will you?

chattychappy

Nasqueron wrote: »

No it isn't. In any way


Bankrupts can get a 999 rating on Experian. Someone with a mid range score can get the top cards.



If the scoring is so important, why don't you borrow from Experian if they rate you well, you won't have any issues will you?

I disagree. It has become a mantra here that credit scores are irrelevant, only seen by you etc., and are therefore worthless.

It is true they are created "on the fly" by Experian (or whoever) when consumers want to know their score. But they are based on a subset of data on which a lender would make a decision. Lenders would also take into consideration what you write on a form, any previous history etc. Therefore there is a correlation between your credit score and how a lender would see you.

My score is usually 999 on Experian (via the Barclaycard service). When a missed payment was logged, the score dropped (to around 850, I think) and then quickly recovered. This all makes sense. A lender is unlikely to see a missed payment positively. They may view it very seriously, or consider it a minor problem.

In my own business we credit check people before signing contracts. Experian give us a score and a recommendation, as well as basic data - eg how long at an address etc. I combine this with what else we know about the person before making a decision. When I checked myself out of curiosity, it gave me the same score as I got via Barclaycard.

In summary, I agree with Mr Underwriter. The score you get from Experian is a useful indication, but I wouldn't rate it any higher than that.

eddddy

eddddy wrote: »

I guess the reason you didn't want to contact the card company was because your wife used your card (and presumably knew your PIN) - and so you probably would have had to admit that you broke the card company's t&cs, and maybe had your account closed.

T-G-C wrote: »

He could still have filed it and confirmed it was an authorized transaction, they are hardly going to ask the hotel for CCTV footage.

CCTV footage is a bit of a 'red-herring'.

Halifax explain their dispute resolution process here:

How to raise a payment dispute with us

If you've been unsuccessful in your attempts to resolve a payment dispute on your account, we can help you raise a claim.

We’ll need the following information:

• The name of the company
• Details of the payment or description of the item/service and delivery date
  
  
• We may also ask you for a written summary of your dispute. This includes details of how you've attempted to resolve the dispute and details of any responses you've received.
  

Link: https://www.halifax.co.uk/creditcards/help-guidance/payment-disputes/

Halifax is then likely then contact the hotel to get their side of the story.

Given...

• A written summary of the dispute from the OP
• Copies of communications to/from the hotel
• The hotel's reply to Halifax

I think it's 99.99% certain that Halifax would find out that the OP's wife was using his credit card - and he had presumably disclosed his PIN to her - and therefore he had breached the terms of the agreement with Halifax.

Nasqueron

chattychappy wrote: »

I disagree. It has become a mantra here that credit scores are irrelevant, only seen by you etc., and are therefore worthless.

It is true they are created "on the fly" by Experian (or whoever) when consumers want to know their score. But they are based on a subset of data on which a lender would make a decision. Lenders would also take into consideration what you write on a form, any previous history etc. Therefore there is a correlation between your credit score and how a lender would see you.

My score is usually 999 on Experian (via the Barclaycard service). When a missed payment was logged, the score dropped (to around 850, I think) and then quickly recovered. This all makes sense. A lender is unlikely to see a missed payment positively. They may view it very seriously, or consider it a minor problem.

In my own business we credit check people before signing contracts. Experian give us a score and a recommendation, as well as basic data - eg how long at an address etc. I combine this with what else we know about the person before making a decision. When I checked myself out of curiosity, it gave me the same score as I got via Barclaycard.

In summary, I agree with Mr Underwriter. The score you get from Experian is a useful indication, but I wouldn't rate it any higher than that.

And again, for the umpteenth time, a person with an active bankruptcy in their record can have a score of 999 (there are examples on this board). They can and will get rejected for credit from mainstream lenders yet this "useful indication" suggests they are perfect.


I had the same exact score from ClearScore for best part of 3 years despite the fact the only debt I had was a PCP car deal (paid every month, on 0%, never missed anything) and a BT card deal (again paid a fixed amount every month always over minimum). A score reflecting my real credit worthiness would have gone up as debt went down, it didn't move. I joined the MSE club while I still had the PCP / BT deal and Experian were saying I was 999 yet Clearscore and Noddle had me around 2/3 of their maximum score. Only the MSE club knows my salary details. I have 2 other credit cards (paid in full every month), a contract SIM phone deal, on the electoral roll at the same address for about 13 years. I have no CCJ, no late payments, no CIFAS etc



Noddle score me currently 642/710 with a rating of 5,



MSE say I am 999 but my credit card and loan affordability is very weak even though my only debt is a BT card which is paid off monthly. MSE say I only have an 80% chance of getting a bad credit card but 90% of getting a good one


Clearscore say I am 538/700



How can it be a useful indication when the 3 big agencies can't even get ratings similar? 100% on Experian, 90% on Noddle, 77% on ClearScore...


Simply put, if you think the number gives you an indication of anything then you don't understand the scoring system

Potbellypig

Nasqueron wrote: »

YOU DO NOT HAVE A CREDIT SCORE

Nasqueron wrote: »

Noddle score me currently 642/710 with a rating of 5,



MSE say I am 999 but my credit card and loan affordability is very weak even though my only debt is a BT card which is paid off monthly. MSE say I only have an 80% chance of getting a bad credit card but 90% of getting a good one


Clearscore say I am 538/700

So you do have a credit score then.

Terry_Towelling

OK, so we do have credit scores and the companies that provide them presumably use facets of our credit histories to create that score.

The question is, what facets do they use to make their determination and just how relevant is the result they come up with?

My guess is that they are teaming up with certain lenders who will give an indication of their lending criteria so the score providers can construct a picture of possible lending suitability with the sole intention of inducing us into applying for credit products with their partner lenders.

How the partner lenders then assess the resulting applicants is something entirely different, but they've had a load of marketing done for them and hopefully screened out most of the dross in the process.

So, yes, we do have a score (or even lots of them) but whether they actually mean anything is another matter.

1974Stephen

Someone scores 999 on Experian. OH PULEEEZZZEEE

chattychappy

Nasqueron wrote: »

How can it be a useful indication when the 3 big agencies can't even get ratings similar? 100% on Experian, 90% on Noddle, 77% on ClearScore...


Simply put, if you think the number gives you an indication of anything then you don't understand the scoring system

Simply put, I do understand! Of course there are exceptions and inconsistencies.

In my own case, the score I got from Experian was the same as the score a company got when they searched me. That came with a recommendation and some data that made up the score. The company was free to take the score/recommendation, or look at the underlying data, or combine it with their own info. Of course it was my company and I was "playing around", but they weren't to know that.

Experian supply data (and perhaps a scoring service) to lenders and use the same data to provide a score to consumers. There is going to be a positive correlation between higher scores and positive lending decisions.