Quite understandable. If I can get a nice Novotel or Mercure for half the price of a Hilton and in a better location, I'll put up with Accor's incompetence. But they really should wake up to how much more business they could do if doing business with them was not such a nightmare and something some of us do under sufferance.

I just made another booking a few days ago for which the particular hotel didn't accept my stored credit card (Amex), so I had to use Visa. Apparently, this is being processed by the particular hotel. It was rejected by my bank, because this dodgy-looking processing from a foreign country triggered the bank's fraud-detection system. Received email from the bank, clicked on the button to indicate that, yes, I had tried to make that transaction. Then I was able to go back and make the booking all over again, enter all the details again. Easy. Just takes 20 times as long as booking with anyone else.