Originally Posted by
groenroos
Last night I made a four-figure payment towards a BA Holiday booking I have. On the first go, I got a message something to the effect of "Your payment couldn't be completed due to an error on our end. Please try again." So, like a fool, I tried again. It went through on the second go.
This morning I notice two pending charges on my credit card, each for the amount I intended to pay once. Aside from the gross incursion of authorising the same transaction twice, this double-charge has actually put me over my credit limit.
Called Amex, they say they won't touch the transactions until they post. Called BA, they said they can only see the successful payment, and it would take another 24 hours for the financial department to see the failed transaction and do something about it. Both of them tell me to "rest assured" that "they are not actually charges, but merely pending authorisations" and that the unsuccessful payment will be released back to me in 3 or 7 or 10 or some other number of business days.
The BA agent said he'd contact me again tomorrow once he hears back from the financial department, but I'm honestly not expecting much more than apologies and further promises of the situation resolving itself over so and so many business days.
Am I crazy for finding it a bit difficult to rest assured while my card will remain over limit for up to 2 weeks because of BA IT's erroneous charge for no reason, and apparently nobody can or will do anything about it? Is there really nothing that can be done?
I know this may not be a huge source of comfort to you, but this is pretty common. Wait 24 hours and call Amex again. I suspect one is an authorisation and the other is a charge. My further guess is that only one will go from pending to charged, and, failing that, you'll be able to sort it out tomorrow. These duplicate charge things are well-known inside Amex so I don't see a big problem here.