#5364 Postby Rwy in Sight » Sun Feb 07, 2016 10:01 pm
OK I need your collective brains about a double charging issue on a booking reservation. I booked a hotel via booking (starting from an airline site) and my VISA card was charged twice: One when the reservation was made and one when I stayed at the hotel in late 2013. In late 2015 I saw the double charge, I contested and the bank sent me a "charge dispute form" with a tick box saying "I certified I participated in one transaction at this merchant". So I ticked the box completed the details and I emailed them. Today I got the response that the bank does not get involved in disputes between the customer and the merchant - they did not complain about the delay in discovering the double charge and although in the past they have refunded double a charge for the same transaction.
I hope it is clear and thank you for taking the the time to read it. Any ideas about what else I can do? I thought about writing to booking but I am not sure what to ask. And I still have the national banking ombudsman.
I am answering a posting from another thread by Rwy in Sight as I think it may be of general interest and more appropriate here.
The above posting is a little short on detail but a couple of points in general.
I'm assuming from what you've said that you used an airline website to book a flight from A to B and the dynamic package process that they use asks you if you want to pay for :
Baggage / seat / meal / Insurance. You usually have to de-select the options (I believe the EU is waffling about making that illegal, so that the default is opt-out rather than opt-in.)
Having got through that it then asked you if you wanted to book a car in 'B' and then a hotel, at which point you ticked 'yes' and were directed to a partner site. It sounds as if this was 'bookings.com' but you didn't specify.
All hotel booking sites work in more or less the same way. They will usually give you a choice of two rates :
1) A pre-paid non-refundable non-changeable rate. You enter your CC details and it is charged immediately, regardless of the date of your arrival. Obviously you then have nothing to pay to the hotel except for extras which you may have charged to your room. They will usually take an imprint/pre-authorisation on your card against this eventuality.
2) A more expensive but more flexible rate where you are required to enter your CC details as a guarantee, and if you don't cancel by a specified time, typically 1200 on day before arrival, they will charge you for the first night. There are a lot of variations on that theme with differing deadlines and scales of cancellation fees. In this case, you pay on check-out, or possibly on arrival.
In your case it sounds as if it was the pre-paid rate. You should have had a voucher confirming that you'd paid, and showing a nil balance.
Now let's get to the double charging. This can happen if there's a glitch on the internet, for example you think it hadn't responded and you clicked twice, thus creating a duplicate booking. Clearly that's not what happened to you.
You were charged by both the hotel consolidator/website and again by the hotel. It's not a banking problem, I don't think they, or the Ombudsman (often useless anyway) will get involved as it's a matter that you need to take up with the booking site and the hotel and let them sort it out between them. Hopefully you have some copy of the original booking, and of the bill you paid at the hotel, and of your bank statement.
In the first instance I would write to the hotel (if it's a chain, write to its head office as well) and the website operator explaining the problem and sending copies of all relevant documentation, and ask for an immediate refund.
The only complicating factors against you that I can see are the facts that you didn't raise the matter with the hotel when they billed you on check-out, and also that 2 years has elapsed. That said, you are in the right and you should get a succesful outcome.
PM me if you want to send any further details and let me know how it works out.
