Have you stayed in one of the above and received poor service?
I am particularly interested to hear from anyone who has handed over their credit card on arrival for ‘pre-authorisation’ and then found that they have been unable to use their card because the ‘pre-authorisation’ amount has been taken from their balance.
Twice in the last year I have stayed with the Holiday Inn group of hotels. The first time was last year in Newport when I had two rooms booked. One room was paid for in advance and the other paid for with my Priority Club points. The hotel took £1000 (£500 for each room) from my card, which put it over the limit for a week. They did eventually get the money reinstated, but I had a lot of aggravation convincing them that this had happened.
Several
weeks ago, I again had two rooms booked at the Crowne Plaza, Caversham Bridge. The stay was only for two nights, but again they took £400 (£200 for each room) from my card.It took a week for this to be returned, I have had a very poor response from the hotel and an even worse response from the Holiday Inn customer service department.
In desperation, I wrote to the executive office and received the following response
It is assumed when you make a reservation for one of our hotels, the credit/debit card account number you provide has sufficient funds available to be used as a guarantee. An authorisation hold amount, in some situations, may be up to the total amount of your room and tax charges for your entire stay, including incidentals.
In other words, even though you have paid for your room in advance, you may need to have up to £1000 available on your credit card, which may remove from your account not only for the duration of your stay, but for a week afterwards as well.
Holiday Inn like to think that they are above being above being a budget hotel, but what they actually mean is that they don't want people to stay with them unless they have lots of spare cash.
If you have had similar problems, please email me at info@ukbizlist.co.uk. You don’t need to put any personal details, but the name of the hotel and the problems you have experienced will be sufficient, especially if it concerns ‘pre-authorisation’ problems as above.
All letters will be treated in the strictest confidence, but a basic outline will be listed here in the hope that Holiday Inn can improve their service