My Disappearing Hotel Bill
This is one of the weirder situations I have come across and I am hopeful someone else has had it happen to them and can tell me what the heck is going on. We recently had an MtM Diamond meet up in Mexico City and we stayed at the Hampton Inn near the city center. All went fine, until I checked out. I somehow was never billed for the second part of my stay. Or, at least I think I wasn’t? Well, it shows I was on some things but not on other things. Sounds confusing right? You bet! Here is the story of my disappearing hotel bill. Please let me know what you think is going on in the comments.
Booking & Check Out Backstory
I feel like my booking, and check out process, may have played a role in this situation so I’ll give you the details. I had originally booked my stay for Thursday to Sunday and it was a cash stay. A few weeks later I decided to head to the city a day earlier to beat all of the craziness of El Grito on Thursday night. So I added on a separate one night cash stay for Wednesday too.
When I checked in they billed me for Wednesday night up front and I used a card in my wallet (Amex Surpass) instead of the card saved on the account. They ended up billing me in pesos instead of USD which meant I was charged a bit more ($5 a night). That is because they had to change the USD price I booked the hotel in to pesos at an unfavorable rate. I made a note of this to say something when checking out for my Thursday – Sunday night stay.
Well, on Sunday I was exhausted and totally forgot to drop by the front desk before heading out. It didn’t cross my mind until I was in the Uber halfway to the airport. I called the hotel and asked if I could be billed in USD instead of pesos. They said that wasn’t possible (no true since I booked the room in USD) but I said fine. I wasn’t going to argue on the phone over $15. I said to bill that same card that I used on the first night and that was that…or so I thought.
My Vanishing Hotel Charge
After I got home I noticed an email from the hotel with my folio for the second stay. Everything looked normal and I figured we were good to go. A few days later, when I was paying credit card bills, I noticed that the Wednesday night stay was billed on my Surpass card but not the Thursday to Sunday portion of my stay.
I went back to the hotel bill and it was showing that it billed the card on my file instead of my Surpass. The problem with that was that I had no idea what card was on file. I am pretty sure it is an Aspire card we closed a year and a half ago but I’m not 100% sure. We don’t have a card that matches the last 4 on the bill in either of our accounts. That is a mini miracle on its own since it seems like Amex recycles the same four digit numbers over and over again. So, I figured they just hadn’t figured out to bill the card from the first portion of the stay.
My statement came and went with no charge outside of the Wednesday night stay. I paid the bill and my credit limit went back to the full allotment. At this point I figured they just couldn’t find a card to bill since every other card on my Hilton portfolio had expired when I went to look at what was on there. I was surprised that I hadn’t heard from the hotel asking for another form of payment but my invoice did show paid so that could be why.
Things Get Really Weird With My Paper Statement
At this point I figured it had to be an issue with the cards and I was going to leave it at that. That is until a few weeks later when I got a paper statement for my Surpass card. I didn’t even know I still had that set up since 99% of my cards are paperless. Wouldn’t you know it, the charge for Thursday – Sunday was on my paper statement dated 9/17/22. (Apologies my wife threw this away while I was out of town last weekend so I don’t have a photo.) That sent a small wave of panic through me, figuring I missed it online and didn’t pay the card off in full.
I fired up the Amex website and went to look at my card account, it still only showed the charge for Wednesday. Next, I pulled up the paperless statement on my account to see what was going on there. There was only a charge for Wednesday night on the online statement. I looked at the credit limit on the card, seeing if maybe the charge had vanished while pending, but it showed the full limit available.
Wut! The charge was on the paper statement but not on the online digital statement!? No charge ever showed on the card, or even showed pending, and the limit for the card shows fully paid off. This is the strangest thing I have ever seen.
My Disappearing Hotel Bill: Final Thoughts
At this point I feel like the hotel billed my card, as shown by the paper statement, and were likely paid by Amex. But, somehow the charge fell off somewhere on the back end with American Express. I still have no idea why the charge showed on the paper statement but not on the digital copy of it. I would assume they are produced at the same time but let me know if I am wrong there.
My fear is Amex’s system is completely messing this up and the online account isn’t displaying things correctly. At some point I am going to be hit with a late fee for phantom charges (even if they are real) because I can’t see them or pay for them.
Has anyone ever had something like this happen? Share your ideas of what is going on below.
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Very strange indeed! and a good reminder for me to clean up my cards. I have tons of accounts with old cards attached its impossible to keep up with them all. I for sure had hotels charge active but expired cards on my accounts but charging a canceled card is a different level.
Along the same lines 2 months ago someone hacked my Walmart account and charged 4 x Ipads on expired cards with totallydifferent #s. Luckily I still got a phone notification when the charge went through and I was able to stop them before they picked up the IPads but if same situation happened with canceled cards it could have been much worse. I also had my taco bell account hacked someone ordered lunch on me but it was disputed and removed. Point being we may have canceled cards on many misc. accounts which can be hacked and charged without us knowing.
Good ponts! Reminds me to clean up my cards on Amazon. I probably have 25 or 30 on there, lol.
Probably they got a pre-auth on your Surpass but somehow never submitted the charge so it dropped. That’s why you saw it on the paper statement but not online.
I’m sure that in the next few weeks or month the charge will eventually post otherwise the hotel is out the money.
Similar situation happened to me recently. I participated in a bike tour while on vacation and instead of paying through the AirBnB app we just ran my card through the kiosk at the shop for a bit of a discount. I have the receipt and everything that the transaction went through but no charges ever hit my card and it has been about a month now. I am not sure what my next step is going to be. I hope the guy running the tour got paid as it was a great tour and this is how he makes his living.
Not related to the issue at hand, but we love the Hampton Inn – Centro Historico. We’ve stayed there twice, both times in the not-distant past when it was 5k points per night! I know it was a steal at that price, but can’t believe it went up to 20k. (I checked because I was so surprised anyone would pay cash when the points rate is 5k).
As soon as I posted this, my husband pointed out that he thought we paid 10k per night. In any case – it was a great rate at either 5k or 10k. 🙂
Yeah 10K is a great deal. It was around 20K-30K while we were there but it was the busiest weekend of the year too.
Bank error in your favor. Collect $200.
“The problem with that was that I had no idea what card was on file.”
So you defrauded Hilton by making a reservation with an unknown or closed card.
Exactly anonymous, I totally defrauded them. It couldn’t have been because I didn’t pay attention to what was saved on my account. And it isn’t like I gave them a working card at check in, no. I totally went to rip them off…
Try harder
Lol…why are a few people so weird and bitter? I am talking about Anonymous obviously, not you. So strange, haha.
It’s interesting that the hotel did not get a pre-auth on the card on file. I see that with Hiltons all the time. But each hotel has it’s own processes so who knows.
BTW – I agree with Anonymous that you purposely tried to defraud Hilton….. NOT
I paid your bill, now go back to drinking like I am in Tokyo right now!
Appreciate it sir! 🙂
In addition to screen shots, I would call Amex. Since it’s a legitimate charge that you expected to pay, maybe they can tell see something different on their end. Possible the hotel determined they couldn’t get paid so cancelled charge through Amex? Might explain why it’s on the paper statement but not online. Could also just pay the extra, so Amex has it if they get sorted out. But may not be able to pay an overage if balance is zero.
Good point – I am not sure if it will let me overpay it or not.
I reached out to Amex after your comment and you were right. I’ll put together an update tomorrow on everything. Can’t believe this is even possible.
In my experience Amex usually sends a paper statement when there is a transaction on a closed card. Are you sure the statement wasn’t for an old card ? Or maybe something went weird with the printing.
It will be worth calling Amex with the last 4 and see if they can see any old accounts with a non zero balance
Depending on the system hotels can send credit card charges in quite an old fashioned batch format which can mean charges go through without even having had an authorization for that amount
Interesting though but it was for the same card the Wednesday night transaction was on – it showed both charges on there.