Billed twice for one night

westernQuestion: I am having a tough time getting my money back from Best Western, and I need your help.

My husband and I stayed at the Best Western Northtown Inn in Wichita Falls, Texas recently. He’s a truck driver and was stuck in Wichita Falls for one night waiting for his delivery spot to open. It was a spur-of-the-moment, short and sweet one-night stay — or so we thought.

I reserved the room with my Visa Check Card but paid for the room in cash. When we received our bank statement, we noticed that the card had also been charged $71 for the night. Because we don’t use that account often and weren’t expecting an extra charge, it resulted in a $35 overdraft fee.

We have tried for months to get our money back from Best Western or the bank, to no avail. A hotel stay that should have been $71 is now $177 — and it was definitely not a five-star hotel! Please help. — Angela Williams-McGill, Garland, Texas

Answer: Best Western should have refunded the extra $71 immediately. Come to think of it, the hotel should have never double-billed you.

Why did it charge you for two nights? There’s no telling. Hotel billing systems and the people who operate them routinely make errors, which is why it’s so important to check your credit card after your stay. Or, in your case, your Visa Check Card. Waiting a few weeks made it more difficult to resolve this case.

To avoid this, you might have asked a simple question when you checked out: Are you charging the card I used to make this reservation?

If the answer is “yes” then you could have fixed the problem right then and there.

A few weeks later, your best bet would have been to contact Best Western corporate by e-mail. It appears some of your contact with the hotel chain was by phone and fax, which isn’t the most efficient way of communicating with any travel company in 2009. Convenient, yes. But not efficient.

E-mailing your request to Best Western sets off a whole chain of events behind the scenes. Your e-mail gets an automatic response, it’s tracked, and both the corporate customer service department and the hotel can be involved in a resolution.

Your back-and-forth with Best Western wasted a lot of time. So much time that the 60 days within which you can normally dispute a card charge had passed, leaving you at the mercy of Best Western. You had a reference number, but no resolution.

I contacted the hotel on your behalf. It reviewed your case and found that although a file had been opened, Best Western couldn’t get in touch with you. The hotel had no record of your second billing, was trying to reach your bank, and couldn’t contact you for some reason. “After not hearing back from Mrs. Williams following two tries, the file was moved to inactive status,” a Best Western spokesman told me.

I sent the company your contact information, and it sent you a check for $106, which covers the extra night and overdraft fees.

  • http://dangph.si.polymtl.ca Dang

    It sound like some front dest people try to make a quick 71$ cash hopping the thing go away unnoticed. Never pay cash at a hotel specially in an other country. It’s very often front desk cashier try this stunt when oversea patrons pay cash. Even you ask for a receipt. If you lost your receipt, youare out of luck. Most credit cards include lost or theft insurrance on your belonging too, so it’s better pay by credit cards.

  • Suzanne

    Chris, please take the time to explain pre-auths to everyone. I work at the front desk and I constantly get phone calls of people who think we double charged them, but one charge is usually the authorization made at check-in. Remeber if you use a bank card, the pre auth can take up to 30 days to come off your statement, this is up to your individual bank, not us poor front desk agents.

  • Chris in NC

    I think that double billing is more common than most people think. Its happened to me on more than one occasion, and thus, I am VERY careful to check credit card statements to verify that a double billing hasn’t occurred. I think it has to do more with carelessness and incompetence than intention.

    Some may ask… why are 2 credit cards being used? Simple… I have a credit card on file. Due to promotions with the various cards (AmEx, Visa, etc), I will change the billing card when I get into the hotel. I can’t explain how or why both cards get charged, and its a simple correction, but it is still extra work that wastes time.

    Other times, I will be using a pre-paid room (through a corporate contract or 3rd party billing) and the hotel will ask for a credit card for incidentals. On more than one occasion, the credit card was then charged for the full amount. The hotel often claims that “3rd party didn’t cover the room, and you are responsible for the charges” Often, the 3rd party DID cover the room, but proving to the hotel is sometimes a monumental task.

    With regards to the above situation, I agree with Dang, that you should avoid paying CASH to hotels at all costs. If so, make sure you have a receipt (look at it carefully) and don’t ever, EVER lose it!

    There are a lot of people in the US that don’t use credit cards. Unfortunately, its almost impossible to make a reservation now-a-days without using a credit card or debit card. I remember a few years ago when a woman in VT was denied a hotel because she only had cash. I suspect that the above couple didn’t ask for a cash receipt or have a cash receipt, hence the difficulties.

  • Carver

    @Dang

    If the cash was recorded and the second billing was the credit card then no, the front desk people aren’t trying to steal money. By converse. If the lost billing was in cash, then who knows. Personally, I am disinclined to believe that front desk folks were trying to rip them off. More likely just an error.

  • Oregon

    As a former Hotel General Manager with too many years in the industry to count, I know personally that the occurrence of theft by a front desk employee is rare. (sorry Dang & chris in NC) Yes there are those employees that try to pull a fast one and steal ( every business has them taking anything from office supplies to pilfering the petty cash box) But most employees in the hotel industry are good hard workers that think it would be stupid to lose a job over $71. dollars.

    There is also a pre-charge that authorizes when that person checked in to verify that the credit card has the funds available to pay for the room (this amount is held aside by the CC company until the final billing goes through)

    The check in clerk would not know most of the time that the guest was planning on paying with cash upon check out. So the hold was run by the night auditor as a charge. The desk clerk at check out most likely was not paying attention to see that there was zero balance or as it happens more often saw the problem, saw a line, said to herself that she would fix it later and in the course of the morning check out just flat out forgot.

  • scott L

    In August 2008 I stayed at a hotel in Dana Point CA. While the room was reserved with my CC card. Someone else I was traveling with paid for the room by his card. My card got billed anyways. I went around and around with the hotel. They said said up proof of payment which I counld not get from the person who I was traveling with.

    I then turned to my useless CC company that told me they could not initiate a dispute with out proof of payment bases on MasterCard Rules. I wrote back to the CC company and ask them to please quote me the rule and section. They then sent up a dispute which the hotel never responded to. case closed and I did not get stuck with the charge.

    I will never again use a CC to reserve a room unless I am going to pay for that room with that card.

  • John Public

    Never pay for anything even remotely open-ended (Motels, car rentals, any sort of auto-renewing subscriptions), or any big-ticket items, with any sort of payment that withdraws directly from a bank account (eg a ‘check card’) The potential for mistakes and abuse is just too great.

    Use either an actual credit card, if you have one (where if there is an incorrect charge, you can dispute it with the card issuer, *and* you don’t have to pay the amount while the dispute is being invesitaged) or pay with cold hard cash (obviously, they cannot charge you incorrectly since *you* control counting the cash out of your wallet/purse)

  • Chris in NC

    @ Oregon,

    I never said that I believed the front desk was trying to rip off the customer.

    However, in my experience, double billing is NOT uncommon (especially with 3rd party billing). I don’t belive it is intentional, rather it has to do with complex computer systems and inattentive staff. Problem with paying cash is that if you lose the receipt, then there is NO proof, whereas if you use a CC or other electronic payment, there is a paper trail.

    The take home message is :
    1) REVIEW your bills carefully (both cards)
    2) Don’t lose your receipt if paying in cash
    3) Don’t be surprised if there is a billing error!

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