Hotel restaurant holding amount

purpleparrotuk

I am staying away for a few days next month. I tried to book a table in the hotel restaurant and on the booking page it says it will hold £20 just in case we don’t turn up. This is absolutely fine with me. So I went through to the payment page. Not only does it say they will hold £20 but they also want to hold an additional £100! This is a ridiculous amount to me. Especially since it will be pending on my account for over a month.
Has anyone else has this amount pending for a table for 2 people?

sparklep0ny

An authorisation hold won't be "pending" for a month, it'll be there for a week or so at most.

It's a bit much but if you want a table, you're going to have to let them place the hold.

purpleparrotuk

sparklep0ny said:

An authorisation hold won't be "pending" for a month, it'll be there for a week or so at most.

It's a bit much but if you want a table, you're going to have to let them place the hold.

Thanks for the reply. It will be there until the night of the reservation because they will take some money if I don’t show up. This is over a month away. So if i book a table for 2 nights that’s £240 pending.

sparklep0ny

purpleparrotuk said:

sparklep0ny said:

An authorisation hold won't be "pending" for a month, it'll be there for a week or so at most.

It's a bit much but if you want a table, you're going to have to let them place the hold.

Thanks for the reply. It will be there until the night of the reservation because they will take some money if I don’t show up. This is over a month away. So if i book a table for 2 nights that’s £240 pending.

The hold won't be there that long.  It will drop off within a week.  The authorisation will be there for up to 6 months but that won't affect you at all.

Sandtree

Authorisations automatically drop off after a week or so and therefore it'll be released back.

As to the principle? No shows is a major issue these days, particularly with apps making it easy to book multiple places and then just decide on the night which you fancy. Depending on the restaurant £20 may represent the loss or not. Have seen one or two places that have set menus where you have to pay for the food up front at the time of booking and so on the night its just the drinks you pay for.

born_again

So my reading of that is they will debit you £20 subject to you turning up. The £100 is a pre auth that could sit there for a max of 14 days (not working days) and then will drop off.
But as this is a credit card it should not be a major issue, unless you are maxed out.

lisyloo

Have you thought of booking another restaurant or another hotel?
if this is a particular special one then you are going to have to accept their terms, but if it’s not then just go somewhere else.

JES_F1

I've made similar restaurant bookings - no charge has been made on my card at the time of booking but if we don't turn up or cancel by a certain date, they'll charge X amount to my card.  I've sometimes seen a small pending payment that's dropped off within a few days but other times nothing's shown on my card at all.

"No shows" seem to be an increasing problems for restaurants so I'm not surprised more and more places are doing this.

ratechaser

Sandtree said:

Authorisations automatically drop off after a week or so and therefore it'll be released back.

As to the principle? No shows is a major issue these days, particularly with apps making it easy to book multiple places and then just decide on the night which you fancy. Depending on the restaurant £20 may represent the loss or not. Have seen one or two places that have set menus where you have to pay for the food up front at the time of booking and so on the night its just the drinks you pay for.

I have to say that I must be very old fashioned but I was shocked when I heard people actually do this. I'd never dream of making a bunch of speculative bookings and just picking the one I fancied on the day. If taking deposits is the answer then I have no problem at all with it.

born_again

ratechaser said:

I have to say that I must be very old fashioned but I was shocked when I heard people actually do this. I'd never dream of making a bunch of speculative bookings and just picking the one I fancied on the day. If taking deposits is the answer then I have no problem at all with it.

Some pubs & restaurants have been reporting 40% no shows since they were allowed to open outside in the relaxation of restrictions.

sparklep0ny

born_again said:

ratechaser said:

I have to say that I must be very old fashioned but I was shocked when I heard people actually do this. I'd never dream of making a bunch of speculative bookings and just picking the one I fancied on the day. If taking deposits is the answer then I have no problem at all with it.

Some pubs & restaurants have been reporting 40% no shows since they were allowed to open outside in the relaxation of restrictions.

To be fair though, that's probably more due to weather conditions and party members bottling it than a general trend towards people just not turning up for bookings.