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I booked my hotel reservation online, and they charged the full amount for my stay to my credit card in advance. That's new to me; usually they just run an authorization, and don't actually run the charge until you arrive (or depart)?

When I noticed this in my online banking account status, I looked at the confirmation that Holiday Inn emailed me. Sure enough, it says that to qualify for some special rate, it had to be prepaid, and was NON-REFUNDABLE in the event of cancellation OR changes.

That might have been in the fine print on the web site, but I didn't see it, and I'm not at all happy about it. I didn't intend to pay them two months in advance, and I might want to change my return date.

Besides which, they charged me $112+tax per night, rather than the $99 HCC2007 rate. (I'd tried to book the reservation by phone to get that rate, but when that didn't work I used the web site instead.)

Update, 2-AUG-2007:

The manager changed my reservation to the correct rate and refunded the undesired prepayment.

I'd suggest that everyone make their reservations by phone rather than online, to avoid such problems.


Edited: 2 Aug 2007, 1:52 p.m. after one or more responses were posted

When I booked, the 800 number, the hotel front desk and the hotel manager didn't know what HHC 2007 was but the manager did vaguely know what a "Hewlett Packard something something" was but he claimed that "they" had never talked to the hotel about a room rate or a room block and he only knew about it from others asking for it. Well the HHC page did say that the hotel may or may not know about an HHC room rate when you call but that's what you'll eventually get, so I'm still hoping for the best.

I don't know if I've been charged already.

I just got a call from the hotel telling me that my room had been lowered to the HHC rate.

Hi,

Richard Nelson had a discussion with the Holiday Inn people yesterday and we believe that the issue regarding honoring the originally promised $99. rate has been resolved. The requirement is that rooms must be reserved by September 1st in order for the rate to be honored. We have a guarantee of 15 rooms at that rate and if those are filled, we should get more but the sooner the reservations are made, the better. Additional details may be obtained at http://holyjoe.net/hhc2007/Update_1.pdf on the web. Thanks for the patience of those who already made their reservations.

Check out the full HHC2007 conference details at http://holyjoe.net/hhc2007 and don't forget to click on the small images of the hp35A and hp35S for further "goodies". We are now over fifty registrants.

Jake Schwartz

Are they still billing one's credit card for the entire stay at the time of reservation?

I spoke to someone at the Holiday Inn yesterday, and was told that the manager had changed my rate to the conference rate, and refunded the prepayment to my card. Today I can confirm the credit in my online account status.

In order to avoid such a problem, I'd suggest booking the reservation by phone rather than online.