Hotel charging me twice ..advice please.

[ohtheweatherisfrightfil]

I have booked a hotel in Madrid through booking.com which is pay on arrival for £278
I am travelling there tomorrow
My banking today is showing £278 pending from the hotel.
I rang the hotel who said it's a pre authorisation and they won't take that payment I pay on check in .
So I'm going to have two amounts pending tomorrow? And only 1 taken
My bank says it takes 5 -10 days for the amount to fall back into my balance.
So now I'm £278 short in my spending money

Is this normal ?

I understand your concerns. It's not that overall you will be charged twice - your title is a bit misleading. It's that for a period of time you will have paid the £278 and you won't have access to another £278. If you are on a tight budget and the pending money was your spending money I can see why it's very annoying if you hadn't realised that was going to happen.

Slightly different situation, but I once paid for a hotel on booking.com for £600 on a debit card. I got to the hotel and they said it was pay on arrival and booking.com hadn't paid them, and made me pay another £600, and then an authorisation for another £600 appeared.

It was nightmarish, I had £1800 tied up for days. It took about 5 days for the authorisation to disappear and another few days to get a refund of the other £600. Meanwhile booking.com ignored all calls and emails, for weeks.

@ohtheweatherisfrightfil
I understand the point you're making, essentially the bank won't allow you access to £278 that you have in your current account as there will be this second pending transaction which isn't real. That leaves you short of cash for your holiday.

I get that it's annoying but it's standard practice for hotels. Suggest you get a credit card for future travel bookings, it will avoid repeats of this and will also give you protection if something goes wrong. Also, if someone steals your money, cc companies are much better at refunding than if it happens off a debit card.

I understand what you're saying unlike most of the posters here! Yes it's really annoying as sometimes it takes a few days for the pending amount to disappear leaving you short in the meantime. Not much you can do unless you have another card to use.

In the past all the hotels have pre authorised say £50 for incidentals and that's okay but to have the £275 pending is a lot for me

Check with the hotel when you arrive - I thought they can release the hold if they want to. The 5 days is the time period the bank gives the hotel to claim it so it defaults back to you if they don’t. But I’m pretty sure they can release it earlier - it’s just much easier for them to let it get released by default. You might need to speak to the hotel manager so it depends how much of a fuss you’re prepared to make.

It’s the bank that’s at issue here, it can take up to 5 days for a pending change to be cancelled but it doesn’t usually take that long, it’s usually instantaneous. Hopefully it will be for you tomorrow.

You contacted the bank and the hotel regarding this? Did you read the T and Cs? This is totally standard procedure

@maxwellparker77 it isn't standard procedure that a pay on arrival with cancellation till 6pm on arrival day takes the full amount as a authorisation
I have stayed in many hotels and yes had £50 incidentals charges or a £1 test payment to check the card works
I have never ever had the full amount pre authorised on a pay on arrival hotel
Ever
I stay in plenty of hotels a year

You would think that the delivery company would be held liable when they have smashed it in transit

Sorry I was replying to a thread and clicked on this one

It is an argument for using a credit card to book, even in you pay on arrival with a debit card. Assuming you have credit in good standing, you would notice the pending transaction on a credit card.

Not all hotels operate in the same way. I also stay in many hotels a year - upwards of 150 nights and this I'm very familiar with this practice.
Is it Accor group by any chance?

This!!