Complaints

• Initial Complaint

  10/17/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  We had reservations at the Holiday Inn in Quincy, Illinois. My son left his credit card and debit card to hold the rooms until I could get to the Hotel. They charged him for rooms on both cards and have tied up funds he needed for his Honeymoon. I have also paid for the rooms. They should not have charged my son for these rooms as I paid for them myself. So, currently we are being charged three times for five rooms and are going to have to wait on our banks to figure this out. This is unacceptable. I have never had a Hotel take a card to hold and then charge you before checkout. I want this reported and would recommend never going to this Hotel. A broken elevator was another added attraction. Old, threadbare towels were in the bathrooms. What a nightmare!!!

  Business response

  10/18/2022

  Dear ********
  I have reviewed the sequence of the check in process for the five rooms booked for your family. I have also reviewed all billing and credit card charges for them. Our credit card security procedures were followed to the letter, and the only actual charges made were for the five rooms on card number ending in ****, which I believe is the desired card. No other credit cards were actually charged for anything on those five rooms. The other cards, including your sons debit card, were swiped for authorization only, and held on the rooms until you brought the card ending in **** to the desk on Sunday to have it used for payment on those first three rooms.
  

  What complicated these transactions is that your group arrived individually, before the billing credit card and owner was present, and in several cases requested access to rooms that were not registered to the person who was checking in. There are serious security considerations on all of this and our rules were created to insure guest safety and security. Under current credit card and hotel security protocols, the merchant must have a credit card read or swiped before granting access to the room, or we risk not being paid for the room if a charge back were to be requested by the guest. All five room transactions would have been complete and to your liking had the group arrived after the credit card that you wanted to use was here to be swiped and you were present for their check in. In the absence of that card and you, in the three cases of early arrival, we needed to have a form of payment before we could allow anyone access to our rooms. In each case the person provided a card that we swiped for security and authorization only. We did not charge their card, we only authorized it. Authorizations on credit cards legally have to be released by the credit card company within an hour of the merchant closing batch (usually midnight). So those authorizations have been removed from those accounts for several days now.
  

  In your son’s case, he offered his ******** card for the first room he checked into, and his debit card for the second room when his ******** was then declined. At that time our desk staff warned your son that debit cards are subject to different rules than actual credit cards and that banks can put a hold on more than the amount of our authorization and can hold it for an extended period (all of this varies with each banks contract). He provided his debit card nonetheless. We cannot be responsible for the fallout from using his debit card instead of waiting for your card to be present. But to absolutely clear, you are not waiting on the banks to settle anything. You are waiting only on your son’s bank to release whatever funds they held when your son offered his debit card for the authorization to access the room.
  The legal way to handle payment when the card won’t be present is called a credit card authorization form. We process these every day for guests. We would have happily processed one for you had you requested this, or notified us of your intentions of early arrival and your desire to use your card before your guests arrived.
  

  Regarding the broken elevator. It was not broken, but rather being used by a large number of traveling people with severe handicaps. It takes them a very long time to maneuver large motorized wheelchairs into and out of the elevators, so we gave them the operating key. It was turned off on by their caretakers as needed. We told guests it was broken to protect their privacy.
  I’m truly sorry for the stress you’ve had during this process. But we did the very best we could under the circumstances that were presented to us by your party.

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