jemmazee

We recently had a stay in the UK. The room was reserved under my husband's hotel program account, which he uses for business travel so his default credit card is his corporate AmEx. Upon check-in, we provided our personal credit card for room charges and incidentals, which the front desk swiped into the system. We had an early morning flight and arrived at the front desk to check out at 5:45 a.m. for a 6:00 taxi (which the front desk had reserved for us). There was a hotel worker in the lobby (maybe a security person or restaurant staff?) who told us that there was nobody on duty who could check us out and that somebody would have to do it when they arrived later in the morning. I have never experienced this at a standard/business type hotel, but OK ... come to find out that they ended up charging his corporate Amex rather than the card we provided at check-in, which ended up being an issue with my husband's employer. We wrote to the front desk to ask that they change it to the personal card and they sent a request to "the manager" but we haven't heard anything back. In my experience, the hotel charging a card for which they don't have an imprint seems unusual to me but I'm not sure how far to press it. Thoughts on if this is standard practice?

farci

Perhaps Amex could resolve this if you contact them. If the payment is withdrawn the hotel may be prompted to respond to you!

s0ssos

Not at all unusual for them to charge the card without an "imprint" (nobody does imprints anymore but I presume you mean a swipe or chip insertion). Mobile checkin never has a physical card and you can skip the front desk.
Anyway so you have to wait for the accounting department (or revenue?) as they have to reverse it and then charge it again. Takes a few business days. It will get done, just have to wait. I have had this happen before.

jemmazee

farci yes, I had this thought too ... something to consider if we don't get a response soon!

jemmazee

Yes, you are right. I definitely have had this happen in the US, but maybe not so much in Europe, esp. in Germany where they seem to want to have the physical card both on check-in and check-out. Maybe that is my unique experience. I was surprised in this case that they ran the card on the account rather than the card they had been physically handed upon check in. I think you are right that it is just working its way through the system.

s0ssos

So what happened was that they didn't replace the card on file when you checked in.

When I check in it usually goes something like this:
(front desk): Can I see the credit card?
(me): Sure.
2 possible scenarios: front desk takes a look, confirms the last 4 or whatever visually and that's it, or they ask me to swipe it.

I've had the front desk say the card is for incidentals the vast majority of the time (maybe all?), and the only time they mention about the room charge is if the card I presented is different. Then mostly they will ask if I have the other card, and if I don't will say they have to charge this card. Sometimes they ask which card the room charges should go to. And sometimes they say nothing, and you find both cards get billed (or in your case the card that wasn't swiped).

People who work in hotels can chime in but I think most often it is a front desk checkin issue, though the night auditor or the person doing the checkout may have something to do with which card gets charged as well (I think one time I got asked during my stay, as they were confused. It was a long stay so they were charging running a charge before I checked out).

jemmazee

I wasn't connecting this until your post, but we had to change rooms the first day because the lock on our door stopped working (another story, but it took them 2.5 hours to get get us into our original room so we could move our stuff because they had to call somebody to come in and figure it out). Now I am thinking that when they moved our room the card presented on check in got disconnected, which wouldn't have been an issue had there been somebody at the desk to check us out, but, well, there wasn't. I will mention this when I follow up since the issue with the room switch likely added to the mix up.

sdix

This happens to me a couple of times a year. A quick call to the front desk (generally the same day) takes care of it. Most hotels batch process overnight so as long as you catch it before processing. They can still do it afterwards if you get a staff member who knows what they are doing.