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Travel Fun and Credit Card Snafu


WWGeezer

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So thought I would share the front end drama of my trip, just because it was a good test of a marriage to have this much shit go wrong in the first two days.

So to properly set the table, we planned this trip to England over the last year.  With all the Brexit uncertainty we decided to book all our hotels using Booking.com.  It is convenient, costs a little more but allows you to cancel reservations almost until the last day.  What I don't like is it puts a company between you and the host, which neither we or the host particularly likes.

Sooo....first 10 hours on a plane is at the edges of what any human can survive especially if you are claustrophobic at all ( my wife is).  Suppose to get there like 3 hours early, plane is delayed by almost 2 hours.  By the time you add the time change and everything else, we were up for like 33 hours on the first two days.

But the fun part is once we got there, were informed that everyone's luggage was still in San Francisco.  They knew it when they took off, but waited until we landed to share that info.  Get in line fill out paperwork, give them the address you are staying.  My wife was smart, she packed her carry on assuming they would loose her luggage, had her meds, make up PJ's etc.  I packed all my travel gear, waterproof cloths, umbrella...no change of cloths at all.  So first three days I was on one pair of underware and one pair of socks.

Sooo....we go to the local Sainsbury's ( think Wall Mart) and start buying stuff we need to survive.  My wife notices a text from the credit card company saying there has been an unauthorized use of our credit card and that Visa was closing our account.  Same credit card that all the hotels are booked under ( none of which have been processed yet).

Soooo.....after my heart stops racing, call the credit card company.  sounds like a $3.06 transaction occured in New Jersey that day.  We had notified our credit card companies we would be out of the country so the transaction caught there attention.  Nice enough guy on the phone and he cut a deal I had not expected.  They would cancel the card in the US, mail us a new one, but would allow all transactions in the UK go thru.

Phew......dodged that bullet right?  About three days later, was not checking emails that close and realized we got a notice from Booking.com ( a US based company) that our credit card didn't clear so our next nights reservation had been cancelled.  Oh Crap....took me a few calls and chats with the Hotels to figure out that if the Hotel chooses to Booking.Com handles all the transactions, meaning if the Hotel processes the card the transaction goes thru, but if Booking.com does it the card won't clear.  With the joys of technology, everything is automated, so if you don't respond to the email to change the card it automatically cancels your reservation.

Soo...round of calls to all our hotel accomodations to give them the heads up, find out how they complete the transaction and end run Booking.com.  Booked a new room to cover the cancellation and keep on plowing.

It all worked out in the end, but added a pretty high level of anxiety at the front end.  Only word for the wise that I shared with my daughters, make damn sure you have two active credit cards when you go abroad.  Would have been seriously scared if we only had one.

 

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