wrong gate again

This will be a long one...
I called the Delta Diamond line last Saturday to book a round-trip Boston to Italy. Got the flights I wanted, told the person yes, he should use the Visa card number I have on file at Delta. He said the 3-digit security code was wrong, they can't issue the ticket. I got my card out, read off the number, the expiration, and the security code. His terminal told him the security code is incorrect again. We tried a 3rd time, same result. I got out a Visa debit card from another bank, read it to him, his terminal said the other card security code is also incorrect. He offered to go over to a supervisor's desk and have the supervisor run the card through. On this 4th attempt, the supervisor's terminal also said the security code was wrong. The representative said they can't issue a ticket, but they could hold the seats and the price until the end of the day (not 24 hours) while I checked with Visa. He gave me a confirmation number, let's call it ABC123.

I called Visa, they said they have 4 charges from Delta in the last 30 minutes, at slightly over $1,500 each. The numbers on my card are perfectly fine. Visa agreed there is something wrong with 4 identical charges, so they offered to credit 3 of them back to me. Visa suggested leaving one of the $1,500 charges open, in case Delta straightened out their problem.

I called the Delta diamond line back, got a different person, bought my ticket with no problems, got a new confirmation number, DEF456, can select my seats, etc.

I waited a few days, checked my Visa account online, and I see my "balance" has gone up by $6,000. There are 4 pending Delta charges of $1,500 and 3 pending credits of $1,500. (There is also a completed transaction of $1,500 with the Delta ticket number attached.) So the pending charges put me $6,000 closer to my credit limit, and might have turned into real charges if I had not called Visa. If these 4 repeated charges had come in from overseas, Visa would probably have suspected fraud and blocked further charges to the card.

Today I called the Delta Diamond desk, and said I wanted to discuss this with a supervisor. But the attendant answering the phone wanted to know the confirmation number. "ABC123 is not in our system, please give me the ticket number." There is no ticket number, you never issued a ticket. I got transferred to a supervisor, who said they can't view transactions, and they have no idea how the 4 charges went through. I won't describe the whole of my 40 minutes on the phone, except to say Customer Care kept handing me back to the Medallion desk, that I never succeeded in talking to anyone who can issue refunds or even view transactions. The best I got was a Medallion supervisor who said he would file an internal problem report, which I will never see, and that I should ask Visa to take off the rest of the charges.

May I make a suggestion to the Delta Customer Care people? When you hand a call back to the lowest-level person, don't tell them "This guy just wants to vent", when the guy wants to get $6,000 in credit card overcharges deleted, and wants to know what Delta will do to keep it from happening again.

vbjd1111

Doesn't this indicate that something is potentially wrong with Visa's processing rather than Delta's system? It seems like Delta submitted the charges (as they are in Visa's system) but Visa reported the charge did not go through. Why is this Delta's fault?

Again, I thought Visa told you they were going to credit 3 of them back (apparently not cancel them?). So this sounds consistent with what you were told the first time, except if you have three credits of $1,500 each and four charges of $1,500 each how did your balance go up that amount?
Also, I often see pending charges on my cards in the improper amount that get checked and corrected over a day or two. Has that happened with your charges?

A refund for what? You called Visa, they cancelled the charges (or at least most of them). Isn't that the most effective approach?

HWGeeks

You bought 1 ticket for 1500
they charged you 4 times. you see 3 credits.

Why are you upset?

flyerCO

This indicates a problem on DL end. Multiple transactions all approved by Visa. However DL system kept saying bad CVC. If this was Visa fault, DL would never have submitted the actual transaction as it never got an authorization. DL was getting an approval, their system was submitting the transaction, but the ticketing system was spitting on an erroneous CVC error.

gooselee

OP says the four charges and three credits are all still pending. I'm guessing that the first four attempts, whatever the error was, just resulted in preauths and will not actually be finalized.

They'll drop off OP's card in a few days and the final transaction for DEF456 will be all that gets posted. OP will have paid $1500 and received a $1500 ticket in return.

Things happen and errors pop up, but there are multiple steps to a CC transaction for exactly this reason.

jamiestr

They will all drop off your card in a day or two and you don't know if it is DL, their processor, the acquiring bank, or the issuing bank. I wouldn't fret about this one.

Kevin AA

you answered your own question; it's in bold

steve64

It sounds to me as if you don't understand the difference between a "charge" to your credit card versus an "authorization/credit" request (which usually appear on on-line displays as a "pending transaction").

I can't speak for why Delta and your CC were having problems communicating with each other. It happens.
Each time Delta tried again, it appeared as another credit request. These are NOT charges to your credit card, though most CC companies do put a "hold" on your account for the amount. In most cases, whenever a merchant seeks authorization for a particular amount, it means they are about to complete a transaction for approximately the same amount. After completing the transaction, the merchant must then submit the "record" of that transaction to receive their payment from the CC's bank. In the old day, this "record" was always the charge slip that you signed. In today's word, it's more likely electronic. For airlines it's electronic and the ticket number is the "proof" of the completed purchase transaction.

While errant/duplicate/erroneous credit requests do lower the amount of available spending (because of the "hold"), they are NOT billable transactions that you are liable to pay. After "x" days from the date of the credit request, if no record of the completed transaction is received, the CC will release the hold (and drop the "pending transaction" from on-line displays). Most folks have enough available credit that the holds don't affect them. Therefore these credit request (pending transactions) come and go without being noticed. If the holds are bringing you close to your limit, ten the CC wants somebody to review the acct anyhow and this is for your protection. If the CC feels a series of repeated credit requests are simply duplicates, then they will manually release the hold(s) as they did in your case. This scenario maybe new to you, but in the CC world it's just another day in the office.

If you still don't undestand the difference between a "credit request" and the completed transaction, then think of a restaurant bill.
At the end of dinner, your wait person brings you a bill for $100. You hand back your CC. They bring back an uncompleted "record of transaction" for $100. To have been able to print that record, they have already asked the CC for a $100 credit request and received an "approval code" (or a "credit denied" message). At this point, you have a "pending transaction" (and hold) for $100. You add a $20 tip and adjust the final amount to $120 then sign the record. Let's say today is your billing date and indeed, the CC is generation your new billing statement as you are filling out the record. The $100 "pending" transaction will NOT be billed to you. Not now, not ever, even though the $100 hold is on your CC acct. You hand the signed record back to the waiter. At some point after that, the merchant will submit to the CC wanting their $120 (minus whatever fee the CC charges them). If the merchant correctly sent back the authorization code of the credit request then the CC will remove the $100 hold at that time while at the same time creating a billable/chargeable transaction to your acct for $120. At the creation of the next statement is when you will be "charged" the $120.

So while your transaction with Delta this time was frustrating, it isn't nearly as bad as you're making it out to be. I highly doubt that Delta "charged" $6000 to your CC. They repeatedly asked for approval for $1500 of credit. As you stated, your call to the CC resulted in the 1st round of duplicate requests being manually removed. Your 2nd attempt in buying the Delta ticket created another round of duplicated credit requests, but Delta only provided proof of a completed transaction (ticket number) on one of them. Therefore, Delta only "charged" your CC for $1500 once.
My wild guess is that Delta was having temp issues on a server somewhere. They were successfully send out the credit requests, but were not getting the "approved" reply back from the CC. After a few seconds, the request "timed out" on the DLL system and replied back to your DL Agent with "approval code not received". Your Agent simply interpreted this to mean "credit denied" and a common reason for such denial is most likely an incorrect security code, so that's what the Agent told you.

TheHorta

Sounds like you have authorizations, not charges. AUTHs will fall-off in 1-3 days automatically.

Aliquot

What happened to the ticket? You said the ticket number was attached to the DL credit card charge, but then you said there was no ticket number? Do you have a ticket?

Jaimito Cartero

jdrtravel

Agree with others that charges will likely fall off. If for some reason they change into actual changes (as opposed to auth or pending) then you just need to dispute them with Visa (or whoever issues the card). It will be much simpler to do this then to try to deal with Delta. Visa will send the dispute to DL and once DL sees there is not ticket attached to the charge, they won't refute the dispute.

Often1

Lost in all of this is, OP, is whether you have an e-ticket receipt which shows an e-ticket number (not a PNR) for your trip and whether the reservation information is correct. If you don't have that, call DL immediately and make sure that the e-ticket is issued. Without an e-ticket, you have nothing and won't be flying anywhere.

Fault is irrelevant here. You did the right thing initially and have been assured by your card issuer --- doubt it was Visa itself --- that a credit has or is being issued for 3 of the charges. This will leave one valid charge for $1,500 which apparently is the proper price for your ticket to Italy.

If your card issuer has told you this, either those are pending authorizations or had finalized and are now being credited. One way or the other, it's over (or should be). If by Monday you do not see the authorizations drop off or the $4,500 in credits, call your card issuer back.

My best guess is that this is neither OP's card issuer nor DL, but DL's payment processor. But, it really does not matter. The key is to stop calling and berating DL as there is nothing for DL to do.

davetravels

When you go to "My Trips" while you're logged into your SkyMiles account, how many of these trips show up there?

defrosted

This.

With all the "middle men" involved in credit card transactions it is a wonder, we as consumers, don't notice more issues.