Is this normal? Hotel charge

[OpenFires]

DH and I have just stayed for one night in a hotel. On arrival they asked for a card to take £150 charge to cover extras (I'd pre paid for the room online). We had dinner last night and the bill was £168. On checking out they still made me pay another £168 and said the £150 would be refunded to my card within a week and wouldn't allow me to pay the £18 balance. Is this normal practice now? I'm a bit put out by it- basically whoever stays here has to lend them £150 for a week?

I don't have the legal knowledge but I agree this really doesn't seem right. Have you paid the additional £168 yet? Can you still refuse?

Not a regular hotel stayer but never had that before. They take card details but never known a charge be made just in case...

Yes, it is quite normal, irritating though. Always much better to give them a credit rather than a debit card when you check in and then just pay cash/debit card/whatever when you check out.

Then the £150 that they're holding isn't quite as noticeable as it's usually gone by the time your bill is due.

It depends on the individual chain, but most hotels I stay at ask "Would you like to pre-authorise your card to charge drinks or meals?" and I always so no, I'll pay as I go. That way I don't run into this issue.

I've had them take credit card details but never actually charge a deposit!

It's a pre authorisation, so they don't actually take it, but they do 'reserve' it so that only they can then take the money, it basically stops people giving a maxed out credit card, running op a massive bill and then running off! Not that you would!

Can you tell I managed a front desk in a big hotel for years & years?!

I got one of those prepaid card service last year for travelling in the USA and they advised against using it for paying for hotels for precisely this reason. Yes, you get the money back eventually, but until you do, that £150 can't be spent on souvenirs/ice creams/drinks etc.

But why hold money for a week after a customer has checked out and paid the balance on the account? Debit card so they have all the money owed now there's no reason to hold another £150 of my money- unless I'm missing something?

I’ve had it happen to me, but only to hold the price of the room never extras
Seems very strange, and if you’re on a tight budget it’s a nightmare
I would probably kick up a bit of a fuss to be honest, sounds unreasonable at checkout they won’t let you use that money

They're not holding the money, they have a temporary charge against it. It hasn't left your account and will be available for you to spend again in a couple of days.

It might not hold for a week. Sometimes it goes after a couple of days.

Irritating, but normal and a good reason to use a credit card, as it will have sorted itself out by the time the bill is due.

With a debit card, there's a risk that they're holding on to money needed for direct debits, unless you have a healthy surplus in your current account, so could get you into all kinds of mess.

@Bluelady the hotel said it would be refunded to me within a week depending on my bank. So the money isn't available to me now even though I haven't spent it and have settled the hotel bill. I've never had this in any hotel before as far as I'm aware it's not normal practice?

I've checked and it has left my account.

I’m a hotel receptionist - they should have offered to complete the preaauthorisation as the final amount if you were using the same card - which would have finalised the transaction. Did you use the same card?

If you were using a different card to pay (than the one you booked/reserved the room on) then there isn’t an option to do this.

We released preauthorisations that were not completed the same day as check out (but not everywhere does this). There is a bank processing time of 3-5 working days however which the business can’t do anything to avoid.

It was part of our T&Cs to preauth prior to arrival to make sure there’s funds in the account to pay in case the guests do a runner or cause damage which isn’t noticed until after departure.

I do know some hotels and chains leave the preauthorisations to release ‘naturally’ once they have expired. That I recall, preauthorisations are valid for 8 days and then there’s the 3-5 days bank processing time on top of this.

Sorry just realised that was a bit of an essay! But hope it makes sense

@autumncountryrose it was the same card I only have one card.

They should have just completed the transaction then - that’s poor practise on their behalf.

If they’ve released it now and your pending the bank to process it there isn’t anything you can do - but I’d be inclined to send them an email or pop a review somewhere to warn other guests, as it might jog them to revising their policy.

We had this in Switzerland , they took £2000 as it was an expensive booking, left us with very little money for our holiday and took 3 weeks to get it back. I'd never heard of it before. Same happened recently in USA, only a one night booking so not much money, but again took weeks to get it back.

Wow! Never heard of this!

I've had the preauthorisation but I've never had them actually take the money. Was it a small independent hotel?

Same here, snew. The worst was when a car hire company took a preauthorisation for £1,000.

Both ours were large worldwide hotel chains

I've had this and it didn't take a week to be paid back. It was a lovely hotel but also one popular with stag/hen groups. They take the charge in case there is any damage/unpaid balances/anything missing etc or extra cleaning I suppose....

I wouldn't say it's standard practise as I've only come across it the once, maybe more used in city hotels than countryside ones I would think.

Yes , this is completely normal with hotels

As autumn said they should have used the pre authorised charge to clear your outstanding charges and let you pay the balance.

It won’t get your cash back any quicker but I would complain to the hotel about their checking out process.