Online Travel Booking and Bidding Agencies - No-Show is charged on priceline?

I am new to Priceline, so please excuse what may be a silly question.

We arrived one day late due to flight cancellation caused by engine trouble and I failed to call them to inform of our delay.

Although the front desk never claimed additional charges at the check-out, I found they charged my companion's credit card for the night. Is this double billing normal even if the payment is already made via PL? :confused:

It's a mistake on the hotel's part (and happens occaisionally... usually with newer employees that don't understand the reservation is prepaid).

Have your friend call the hotel and explain that that they were charged for the nite although the reservation was already pre-paid thru Priceline (no need to get into the fact that you didn't show as that's irrelevant to the situation).

Happens all the time - I'd say that 30-40% of my PL stays result in an incorrect bill that needs to get cleared up at the front desk. It always gets fixed.

Thanks for the reponses, thereuare and Tino. That's very helpful! :)

It is a little odd though, considering the hotel clerk was well aware the reservation was prepaid as my companion told him the payment was done in advance thru priceline. He even wanted to keep a copy of the Priceline receipt I printed out. Anyway we will call the hotel right away and indicate this double charge.

I've had attempted double charges on a couple of Priceline stays also. I tend to think there should be some penalty to a hotel that does this, or reward to the customer perhaps, because this double-billing is something of an annoying hassle to deal with. Furthermore, if the hotel is in Europe and they wrongly charge in Euros (for example) and then refund in Euros, you get hit with a conversion charge from one's CC, although the hotel did right that when I asked.

I DO agree with WillTravel. In fact, the charge to his credit card was NOT in US Dollars, but in Japanese Yen. He will definitely get hit with a conversion fee by his credit card company, and what is worse, the timing is really bad - the yen is appreciating sharply against the dollar, you know. Good grief....

This is what I did. I waited for the credit to appear (which took a week or so), and then when I could see what I had lost, I contacted the hotel by email and told them that I had lost ~$20 in the conversion. They then gave me a another credit to cover that.