To think this is the most embarrassing reason to have your card blocked??

[slippedawaylikeabottleofwine]

I’m going on holiday next year and because of that I’ve been reserving a ton of hotels on booking.com, all for free, with a view to deciding where I’ll be staying next year at some point. Nationwide blocked my card after I did about four in a row! I just had to call and explain what I was doing, they blocked it for “suspicious activity”.

Fair enough, it looks odd, but now I’m mortified

Why can’t you decide now and stop messing so many businesses around?

Strange. You could have been booking for a group.

I need to do research.

these businesses are fine - some will end up charging well over £1,000 a night. I’m locking in a good price now before they start to price gouge ahead of the event I’m travelling for.

It’s great that your bank have taken action when they suspected suspicious activity.

It is a very odd thing to do.

I had a transaction that I didn't recognize and I called the bank. They traced it and found it was an escort service. I'm pretty sure the customer service person believed I hadn't used an escort service (I low-key didn't know they were legal). The bank blocked my card when I called them.

I've had the same. Really annoying. Now I have no confidence the card will work when I'm out there so I'm making all sorts of contingency plans.

We've had our cards cloned twice and both times we've discovered it when a transaction has been rejected in Waitrose - now that was mortifying!

Does everyone do this? Isn’t it like buying too much toilet paper during the pandemic? I never hold more than one place on my card and that’s usually because due to the nature of my work I may need to cancel the booking. I think allowing free cancellation up into a certain date is a great benefit and abusing it probably means fewer places will offer it. Booking ‘a ton’ of places is not why it’s offered as an option. I’m sure lots of people will respond telling me I am wrong and ‘if hotels let you do it then it’s their fault and it’s ok’. But it seems poor to me, both from the perspective of the hotels and for other potential customers. Maybe I am a dinosaur… or maybe I’m just polite.

I NEVER book a place that I have to pay for at time of booking and isn’t cancellable till pretty much the last minute . With kids - you never know. And the premium for that ‘luxury’ is pretty high so don’t worry about those businesses.

...and let people who actually want to stay in these places be able to book.

OP is being YABVU.

I’m booking for a year out.

people will be able to book. Booking.com literally has an option in their cancellation list for doing this.

What's the embarrassing but? I dont get why you're mortified by a normal bank security check with an easy explanation

The person at the bank doesn't care

Exactly. Mine isn’t because of kids, it’s because new places are popping up all the time, and I’m trying to get best value for money. I’m not going to commit to one, but I’m also not going to wait for them to hike their prices up

It’s one room.

im doing it with chains, not small family hotels (mainly because they require payment up front). I’m travelling for an event and I am well aware that these hotels will all sell out. I made that mistake this year.

Not sure how it's mortifying, the bank seem quite sensible in their actions and you had your (albeit in my eyes, weird) reasons...

I thought it was quite normal, me and my family always do it. I’m glad they took action, it was just embarrassing to try and explain!

Why would you be mortified by this?

I could understand being mortified if you'd spent all your money on frivolous crap and racked up a massive overdraft and then your card getting blocked. This is literally just a protection measure from your bank to make sure someone hasn't pinched your card. Now you've explained they will unblock it, they aren't judging you for reserving too many hotels.

The only weird thing here is your reaction.

It just feels quite embarrassing to explain how indecisive I am🤣

According to you it’s tons of rooms as you’re doing it in tons of places. If you’re travelling for an event why do you need so many options when you could choose one or two and just reserve them? I imagine lots of other people are travelling to the same event and need accommodation too.

Why would you feel it is acceptable to book rooms that you might not stay in?

Ah ok, fair enough, I didn’t realise people did this but as you say if they are going to hike the prices then knock yourself out. 😀

Your behaviour is really strange, tbh.

Some hotels have a no cancellation policy. They don’t have people booking like this. Some have a cancel until the day before policy. They will have people double booking and cancellling. It’s for a business to decide how they want to operate, not for me to make up policies and abide by those instead.

I regularly book cancellable hotels and chance plans, or cancel and rebook if the price drops. I’ve stayed at 6 hotels in my last 2 week holiday so there is a lot of chopping and changing of plans or multi booking in case the price drops.

For the same reason the hotel chains think it’s acceptable to hike prices up to ten times higher. Because I need to do what I can to get the best price for myself.

It is shit like this, that makes things more difficult for other people.
Hotels will stop taking reservations without a deposit.

Because, again, I need to decide, but these hotel rooms get snapped up. It’s not as if I’m paying for them all and they’ll sit empty. I’m 90% certain on the one I’ll be staying at now, so they’ll soon be released back onto booking.com!