Double Charged by Holiday Inn Express **Help Needed**

nick1232728

Hi all... please could you help me out?

I recently stayed at a Holiday Inn express which I reserved online. On the morning of the stay I was billed for the full amount so I assumed I had paid in full. When I got to the hotel I checked in as normal but then noticed the next day that a duplicate amount debited from my card (the same amount). I complained at the time and the reception said it was just a preauth and it would be removed in 5 working days. I thought fair enough but then when I arrived home I noticed that they had taken the full amount again so I've paid twice for this room.

I called them up to complain and after being fobbed off for a week saying 'they were looking into it' they've come back and said that I'd bought two rooms even through I clearly have an email which says 1 room, 2 guests. It's clear to me now that whoever checked me in has 'sold' me another room.

I'm literally at a loss as to what to do now

Please could you guys help me out with some advice, should I contact my bank, complain to head office (they seem useless though and just push you back to the hotel), social media complaint? 

I'm just shocked that such a big company would try this for such a relatively small amount of money!!!

filthycop

How many keycards were you given? They can see in their records how many were issued and used

nick1232728

I was only given one keycard for one room. The young guy who checked me in has clearly pressed a wrong button somewhere but I'm just utterly shocked my their response.

Aylesbury_Duck

filthycop said:

How many keycards were you given? They can see in their records how many were issued and used

If another guest's room, or an empty room, has been wrongly attributed to OP, the keycards might not provide the evidence OP needs.

Sandtree

filthycop said:

How many keycards were you given? They can see in their records how many were issued and used

It depends how many bookings there are... it could be there was a misunderstanding at check-in and the OP wasn't clear that they had a booking therefore there is a no show booking from the one done online and then a second booking done at the desk at the time.  In that scenario only one card would be issued as the original booking was never checked in.

No idea how sophisticated their systems are but I'd be double checking the confirmation email from the original booking to make sure I hadn't gotten the room/guests field mixed up and assuming I hadn't then enquiring with them what their system is showing in terms of the original booking... was it checked in? was a second room added to it at that point? 

Its almost certainly not a corporate conspiracy but an admin error. Things like this tend to take a little bit of time to be looked into and big companies set tight KPIs for their staff and hence you can get poor quality responses as they dont have the time to dig into it. 

user1977

nick1232728 said:

I'm just shocked that such a big company would try this for such a relatively small amount of money!!!

I'm pretty certain they're not "trying" anything, it's just a c0ck-up.

nick1232728

I'm sure its just a computer error but it's their response that has baffled me. I called them up again as Sandtree suggested. The original booking number which I had on my email is the one that was checked in and she then gave me another booking number which I didn't recognize. I have searched through my emails but cant find anything relating to the other booking number at all (that one obviously wasn't checked in) - have raised another complaint and hopefully the manager will actually phone this time to explain a bit more. 

I've made sure I didn't vent my frustrations at the front desk staff as they are just doing their jobs, just a bit frustrating hay!

nick1232728

girl on the front desk said the manager would call back by 5 and of course they didn't. The email the manager sent me omitted her name, just says Kind Regards, Guest Service Manager.

Do you think it's worth contacting Natwest about it as this point or continue to chase them around - I'm actually having to move money from my savings account to cover the shortfall due to this as I highly doubt this will be resolved anytime soon

born_again

Same card number for both transactions?

ThumbRemote

user1977 said:

nick1232728 said:

I'm just shocked that such a big company would try this for such a relatively small amount of money!!!

I'm pretty certain they're not "trying" anything, it's just a c0ck-up.

They're not trying to sort it out, though, are they?

user1977

ThumbRemote said:

user1977 said:

nick1232728 said:

I'm just shocked that such a big company would try this for such a relatively small amount of money!!!

I'm pretty certain they're not "trying" anything, it's just a c0ck-up.

They're not trying to sort it out, though, are they?

No, but approaching it with the attitude that you're being defrauded is unlikely to be helpful.