mathematician

Ahhh, that makes sense. I've never had it on a bill probably because in the larger cities I fly in and rely on hotel shuttles and/or taxis (and sometimes even the odd bus ). One reason I avoid car rentals in big cities is what to do with the car during the day. You've probably guessed that I travel to the larger cities on business! In fact, a lot of the seminars I attend are right at the hotel I stay at.

WillTravel

It would help to know the amount of the Priceline bid and the number of nights, as well as the amount of the rogue charge that may or may not be for parking. What is the hotel's parking charge per night? $20-35 is not uncommon in some places.

NBSPGMEMBER

With the letter from the hotel I also got two bills. One was for parking charges and the other one was described as followed;
Advance deposit room rate and then the amount. AGAIN when I called the hotel I told her this is not the amount I paid for the room and the room was paid in advance. I'm sure they're playing me... playing the " I don't understand card". I called there 5 times and they we're not able to help me.

catwings01

The advance deposit room rate (if it is indeed the amount the hotel is billing PL) would not equal what you paid for the room. Your bid would have PL fees and, if your winning bid was higher than the net rate the hotel had loaded in the PL inventory that difference would go to PL as profit above the fees they charge since the hotel is paid only their net rate.
Did both the PL and the hotel charge appear on your cc statement yet? Perhaps the confusion on the statement presented to you by the hotel is that they listed the deposit room rate on what should have only been an incidental folio, but you may have only actually been charged for the incidentals? By the way, you should never have seen the PL rate as it is supposed to be suppressed on the bill in order to keep guests from knowing how much PL actually paid the hotel.

NBSPGMEMBER

[QUOTE=catwings01]
Did both the PL and the hotel charge appear on your cc statement yet?

Yes.

On my statement I have all 3 items

Priceline...........aa,bb$ / room rate
Marriott Halifax........cc,dd$ / lower room rate than I paid Priceline
Marriott Halifax........ee,ff$ / incidentals

*remember these are actual charges, not temporary "charges"

KyRoamer

Protest to credit card company. Dispute both room chages -- Priceline and Hotel -- until they work things out.

jayer

You are to be commended for you positive attitude, but assitant managers are way farther down the food chain than the title implies, and are probably not the person to be trying to resolve with.

At this point I would still try a faxed letter to the GM or front end manager, responding to the clueless letter you received, including a copy of the letter, your correct folio, and a copy of your charge bill, showing they had chaged you twice, and explaining you believed the desk clerk had substituted your credit card number for Priceline's. I would put it in writing before I called again. If I was expecting to be back in Halifax I might just stop back by. I might also try Marriott HQ and see if there was anybody I could talk to about mediating a billing dispute.

Several years ago I now recall having a similar writen exchange with a new accounting manager at a Texas Hyatt. Took several iteratons to get her educated, but one day the light went on. My 2005 Marriott experience seemed more intentional than accidental and involved several stays (and too much money to walk away from). I was in town anyway and had met the manager several times, so I could show up and ask for him by first name. That seemed to make the front desk nervous and they all but begged me to talk to anybody else first, and found me the front end manager and accounting manager in a hurry. Fortunately they were both very competent, and new, people and recognized the error quickly. Things were resolved and I have stayed there since and recommended it to others.

It can't hurt to challenge the charge on you card, but that is not an absolute solution. My last round went nowhere when the hotel asserted it was a correct charge and a very annoying young lady witht he credit card issuer decided she believed the hotel over me. At that point I considered myself both slandered and insulted by both and it was worth going back to the hotel even if it cost money and time.

In regard to your trip, How ws Halifax? That's on my short list of places in North America I've never been to and want to see. Recommdations what to do?

NBSPGMEMBER

Halifax is great! We live only 3 hours away and we go regularly. The city is beautiful, if you're looking to experience Atlantic Canada this is the place to start. The food, the history, the people; tourists love it here. The scenery in Nova Scotia is incredible, the "Cabot Trail on Cape Breton" is a supposed to be the most scenic drive/view on the North American east coast. There are many nice hotels in Halifax, but what stands out is the staff. People are very friendly in Halifax, they have a small town quality to them, even if Halifax is a mid-sized metro area; 250 000 residents or so.
You should really go, enjoy!

Beckles

In dozens and dozens of Priceline stays I've had this happen once (and also once on an Expedia stay back in the day when they had a similar service, which is basically the same situation). Disputing via your credit card is one way to go, but it can honestly be the slowest way to resolve the issue for good, even though your card will give your money back immediately, the amount is only in dispute and not resolved and could still go against you.

In my experience, the best thing to do is call the hotel and ask for their accounting department.

Just to share a story of how much better it works to try and work with a provider instead of just disputing (which I think many people are often way too quick to do), I was in Florida on July 4th and ate at a Denny's for breakfast. When I was paying they were having problems with their credit card processing system so I just paid cash instead after they had run my card and it didn't work. Lo-and-behold, a week later I notice they charged my credit card too. My first thought actually was to just dispute it and state I paid cash. However, I decided instead to give the restaurant a chance to fix it, I called them up and asked to speak with the manager about a credit card issue. I spoke with him for a few minutes, gave him the info, and two days later it was fixed, refunded to my credit card. Not only was the issue resolved much faster than if I had disputed it (again, I would have gotten the money back, but it would have just been a temporary credit pending ultimate resolution), but I also made the restaurant's life easier because they would have been charged a fee for my chargeback. That's a win-win situation.

In the case of the original poster of this thread, I commend them for trying to work with the hotel to fix this, but at this point I would have to say it's time to dispute the charge on your credit card!

VagabondX

Although you've spoken with the hotel on the phone five times I don't see that you've sent or faxed to the hotel a copy of your credit card statement, which is your only proof that you were charged twice.

Make a photocopy of your credit card bill, circle the two separate charges from the hotel, and fax that to the hotel, to the attention of the Accounting Manager. Then when you speak with him on the phone for a sixth time he'll have something in his hand to look at and know what you're talking about.

I'm a frequent Priceline user and I've been double billed three times by three different hotel chains. It's usually a mistake made by a new night auditor who's not familiar with processing Priceline reservations, and it can happen at any hotel. I've always been able to get the charge reversed with one short call to the hotel's accounting manager.

NBSPGMEMBER

Good news!

I was finally refunded. Today I checked my CC account and they refunded me the charge. After a letter to the Hotel, to Marriott Headquarters, a Mastercard dispute and 20$ of long distance calls .
The customer did win this one! Cheers and thanks to everyone!

NBSPGMEMBER

I recently made 2 new Priceline reservations, I got one Marriott Hotel and a Sheraton. When I checked my reservation on the Marriott site I saw that the credit card used is not mine??? It's a strange number...
Anyhow, when I booked on Priceline for the Marriott Halifax, the same thing happened when I checked my reservation online at Marriott.com. So at that time I called the hotel to inform them that this was not my credit card. The girl at the hotel a little confused, said ok and she added mine instead" Could this be the reason I was billed twice?
This time I will just leave the strange numbers on my reservation. Maybe those numbers are the ones used by Priceline to pay the hotel? I don't know. With my Sheraton reservation... well when I tried to check it at the SPG.com website, this is the message I got;

We have found your reservation. It is not possible to display this particular reservation online. This is usually due to an unusual or complex rate or set of rates associated with the reservation in question. For questions regarding this reservation, please contact the Customer Contact Center nearest you.

Maybe with a Priceline reservation, you're better off not looking at your reservation at the Marriott, SPG, Hilton, etc.. websites, and don't call either to change anything. So you won't mix or mess the "system".

I'm a newbie with Priceline...is there any senior Priceline users here for some imput on this?

nolookingca

Mastercard expiring in '08, right? I believe that's priceline's card. And that's probably why you got double billed. The hotel billed the CC# they had on file, which should be priceline's.

crhptic

Yes, that sounds like exactly the reason you were billed twice. As others have posted, Priceline pays for your room using a credit card. If you replaced their card # with yours, you would get billed.

However, there is a bright side to all this - now you know exactly how much Priceline paid for the room, so if you ever have to bid that hotel again, you have a better idea of how much to bid

CrazyOne

Sounds like you're just "overthinking" your Priceline bids there. Yes, you do get an actual Marriott (or whoever) confirmation number, but no, you wouldn't expect that res to have your own credit card info in because you are billed only by Priceline for that res.

So, in fact, this episode was entirely your own doing. You tricked the poor clerk into making the mistake in the first place! Oh, well, live and learn.

You can't typically make any changes to those reservations, and in most cases except Marriott I don't think you can access them at all. If you want to put in bed prefs and stuff, best bet is to call the hotel directly. (I typically don't bother, but then I'm usually bidding for one person or two of us who will share one bed.) Most will accept this, some will grumble.