Barclaycard Reward card foreign transaction refund different to original payment (not exchange rate)

MyRealNameToo

VXman said:

A hotel in Australia charged my account with $800.19 and then refunded it 4 days later with $800.19.

However the Sterling amount came out at £399.43 and  £393.31 respectively meaning I lost £6.12.

Why is this? It can't be down to exchange rate by that much in 4 days and Barclaycard rewards say no foreign transaction charges.

Any ideas? 

It is due to FX fluctuations, welcome to the joys of international purchases. 

Personally have been in the money and out the money, once fairly substantially when the currency tumbled and got a lot more back than I'd paid over. 

Marchitiello

You can check yourself here:
https://www.visa.co.uk/support/consumer/travel-support/exchange-rate-calculator.html

Edit the date to the one of each transactions

sausage_time

I assume the payment and refund were in Australian Dollars and that Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) is not at play here?

VXman

la531983 said:

It is 100% exchange rate fluctuation. You could easily have been UP six quid instead. Would you be giving the £6 back?

Nobody has done anything wrong and you have no redress.

No need to be quite so passive aggressive about it!! 
Actually the hotel are in the wrong as it was meant to be a hold on the account and not charged. They mistakenly charged the account so I had to request a refund.

However, I won't be chasing the hotel as it would be too much hassle.

I didn't think it was the exchange rate as I haven't noticed any difference in my general spending here over the last week or two 

I shall await my statement in a few days so I can see exactly what the rates were for the 2 transactions.

born_again

they should have done a reversal, which simply reverses the payment at the same rate. 

Did you by any chance pay on a different card when leaving to the card you booked with?

If you did, this happens a lot as system or accounts staff can not match off booking to payment via card number 🤦‍♀️

VXman

born_again said:

they should have done a reversal, which simply reverses the payment at the same rate. 

Did you by any chance pay on a different card when leaving to the card you booked with?

If you did, this happens a lot as system or accounts staff can not match off booking to payment via card number 🤦‍♀️

No, the hotel was booked and paid for by/through a travel company. I presented my card as requested when I checked in case I used the bar/restaurant and charged it to me room. 

I didn't do this and they refunded the card when I left as I noticed it had actually been charged to the account and wasn't just 'pending' which is what normally happens in these situations.