In message , at 21:22:56 on Thu, 14
May 2009, Stephen Furley remarked:
Something else that I'm not totally happy about is the way it works at the
hotel I stayed at recently. When you check-in they obtain 'pre
authorisation' for an amount equal to the cost of the room plus £30, and for
this you have to enter a PIN. When you check out they charge the actual
amount to your card, and for this you again have to enter the PIN. As far as
I could see there was nothing on the screen to indicate whether this was a
'Pre-authorisation', or an actual charge. I did check my account, and it
does seem to work the way they say it does, only one amount was taken, but
it should always be very clear to the customer exactly what they are
authorising when they key in the PIN, and it isn't.

That reminds me - I stayed at a foreign hotel about a month ago and they
insisted on making a 10-euro test-payment using their C&P machine. This
was for "extras" and in fact I didn't incur any. When I checked out
there was some confusion about whether or not the 10-euros needed to be
explicitly refunded, or whether it just "expired" in some strange way. I
must check my statements...
--
Roland Perry