Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
I've been finding it very frustrating recently to deal with preauthorization and pending charges in that many phone agents don't know how to identify them and are very confused when you ask whether something has posted as an actual charge or not.
IMO the OP should check very carefully for duplicate receipts with different ticket numbers in email and by searching delta.dumb and the Saudia website. It seems unlikely, but just in case two tickets were issued, it would be better to deal with this before the flight. Assuming that there hasn't (yet) been any schedule change or other reason for a reissue, there should only be a single 006- ticket number which is the same number on every piece on documentation related to the trip.
I have double checked my emails, including searching for all tickets charged using the credit card I used to make the purchase and it shows only 1 ticket which I purchased. I also called Delta to take a look at my reservation under my name and the agent told me she could only find 1 ticket reservation under my name.
Originally Posted by
steve64
No, Delta did not authorize twice. From what I read here, this is my take:
- May23, DL did the authorization. This posts (if approved) to your acct as a "pending(floating??) transaction". It counts against your credit line, but is NOT a billable transaction that you owe anything for. It will never show on your statement.
- May24, DL ticketed the reservation and sent a "record of charge" to your cc bank with the ticket number to prove that the purchase was completed. This posts to your cc acct as a "real" transaction. It is billable and will be on your next statement.
ANY credit card purchase where the merchant did an approval first (so practically all transactions) have these 2 transactions postings: 1) the authorization (pending) 2) the record of charge (real).
When all works ok, the pending transaction is deleted at the same time the real transaction is posted. So from your point of view, you think of it as one transaction. But behind the scenes, it's always two.
For the "auto delete" of the pending transaction to happen, the associated record of charge must match to it. Many things can cause the match to fail but most likely it's some batch job held up somewhere. It could the DL or credit card end.
Any pending transaction that doesn't get matched/deleted will eventually expire. At that time, the "hold" against your credit line for that amount will be released. The expiration time frame is variable, but think of it as 7 days +/- a day or 2 and you'd be close most of the time. As long as the pending transaction isn't pushing you up to your credit limit, it's completely harmless. As others have noted, this goes on all the time. It usually goes un-noticed, but airline purchases tend to be larger amounts thus more 'visible'.
It just it was charged twice. I have purchased a ticket from delta prior and this never happened. What happened was May 23 I paid for my ticket using my card, my available limit was then down the amount of the ticket cost. May 24th in the morning the ticket cost posted on my account and I could see the 006XXXXX transaction with Delta. May 24th Evening, I checked my card account using my mobile app, and saw my available limit go down, but oddly didnot do any transactions nor was there any pending transactions. Called my bank customer service, and was informed that there was a 2nd Delta Charge of the same amount which I payed for on May 23rd. The rep told me it was odd since the May 23rd charge already posted, the rep also informed me that it was the same amount, and it might have been double charged by delta but it was still pending/floating.
After speaking with my bank, I then called up delta too, and was told it might be a system glitch that led to another charge which was made 24th evening.