Hotel booked for May with Card that will be cancelled in April

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sng1971

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Hi,

I booked the Sofitel Bali with my Westpac Altitude Black AMEX for a stay in May. I have just found out that the card will be cancelled in April, due to the RBA changes.

The conditions of my prepaid booking state:

Credit Card Payment Charge : Credit card provided for the guarantee must be presented upon check-in.

My question is, can I still present this card at check in, and use another card for the incidentals, even though the old card no longer works?

Or should I try to contact the hotel and advise the situation?

Many Thanks
 
Hi,

I booked the Sofitel Bali with my Westpac Altitude Black AMEX for a stay in May. I have just found out that the card will be cancelled in April, due to the RBA changes.

The conditions of my prepaid booking state:

Credit Card Payment Charge : Credit card provided for the guarantee must be presented upon check-in.

My question is, can I still present this card at check in, and use another card for the incidentals, even though the old card no longer works?

Or should I try to contact the hotel and advise the situation?

Many Thanks
Usually they just need to see the physical card but not do anything with it. Then use an active card for incidentals.
 
Same experience.Had upgraded from a gold to plat Amex.Just took the gold card with me and no problems as far as I am aware.It was Air asia Thailand and after seeing the card they issued boarding passes.A little later I checked the BPs and I was in the same seat as mrsdrron.
 
Even though the card will be cancelled, your liability under the card TC will not. Anything charged to the card (even though cancelled) can still be charged to you.

Easiest is to present another card when you check in. I have book countless hotels using one card but presented another upon checkin no issues. With so many cards I sometimes forget which card was used at booking
 
Even though the card will be cancelled, your liability under the card TC will not. Anything charged to the card (even though cancelled) can still be charged to you.

Easiest is to present another card when you check in. I have book countless hotels using one card but presented another upon checkin no issues. With so many cards I sometimes forget which card was used at booking

That’s exactly what they plan on doing. Use an active card for incidentals. But the card they’ve booked and paid with will be cancelled by the Bank but the hotel wants to see the physical card.
 
That’s exactly what they plan on doing. Use an active card for incidentals. But the card they’ve booked and paid with will be cancelled by the Bank but the hotel wants to see the physical card.

Interesting - I’ve never been asked to show the booking CC. All I’ve ever been asked for is ID and a CC( not the booking CC) to charge the invoice plus incidentals to.

In any case just say card cancelled here is another one.
 
Interesting - I’ve never been asked to show the booking CC. All I’ve ever been asked for is ID and a CC( not the booking CC) to charge the invoice plus incidentals to.

In any case just say card cancelled here is another one.

That misses the point as to why they have asked for the card.

I have been asked. Multiple times. At Hotels, airlines, and in fact just last Saturday night when I went to collect tickets to a theatre performance at the Melbourne Arts Centre. They just wanted to see the card. And I have also been in the same situation as the OP when the original booking booking credit card was cancelled. Its why I always take my (old/cancelled) cards with me if I have used them to make a booking especially overseas.
 
Again interesting (not in a disbelieving way) but I’ve never been asked for the booking CC when I’ve presented a different card. Ever.

Maybe I have to keep cancelled cards unless I’m sure???
 
Again interesting (not in a disbelieving way) but I’ve never been asked for the booking CC when I’ve presented a different card. Ever.

Maybe I have to keep cancelled cards unless I’m sure???

Yep. Its rare I agree but could trip you up. Singapore Air always asked for it.

This was on the email received on booking. (The reference number showing is now meaningless ;))

credit.JPG
 
So what happens if I booked something for MissQS who does not have CC/ or alternatively it’s a present and she turns up obviously without the booking CC?
 
So what happens if I booked something for MissQS who does not have CC/ or alternatively it’s a present and she turns up obviously without the booking CC?
From the other nights experience they wouldn’t give her the tickets as she could not prove that she was the person buying the ticket or she had used someone else’s card to do so. She would have to present the card that was used to buy the ticket.

I think this is designed to prevent ticket scalping. In the case of hotel travel, to prevent fraud.
 
That’s going to be a PITA
Agree. I usually try to cut back on cards I take OS but this stops me doing that.
As an aside I purchased Award tickets in my QFF account on my credit card for my son and his partner. I contacted EK as I was concerned about this very issue. I have it in an email that they won’t be refused travel when they are in the UK.
 
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Yep. Its rare I agree but could trip you up. Singapore Air always asked for it.

Oh god I learned this the hard way!! Lady Lenny and I had been living in Dublin for 2 years right at the beginning of our relationship, we booked our flights home on her Irish bankcard...in between booking this and leaving Dublin the financial crisis occurred and the bank went under. When Lady Lenny went in to withdraw the last of her euros they insisted on taking the card and cutting it up (in hindsight we should have questioned this)

Long story short we presented at LHR at 9pm for the last flight out, in the pouring rain, completely broke (we were early 20's and had been travelling Europe) and are told we can't check in because we don't have the card. Lady Lenny breaks down, the check in staff are frantically calling Singapore to try and work around it, no can do. We end up having to call my father in the middle of the night Oz time and use his credit card to book it over the phone after getting authorisation from Singapore to do it.

We make the flight and get home, but yeh...I'm paranoid about that now. Although ironically I've only been asked for it once in about 10 or so flights with SQ since.
 
Oh god I learned this the hard way!! Lady Lenny and I had been living in Dublin for 2 years right at the beginning of our relationship, we booked our flights home on her Irish bankcard...in between booking this and leaving Dublin the financial crisis occurred and the bank went under. When Lady Lenny went in to withdraw the last of her euros they insisted on taking the card and cutting it up (in hindsight we should have questioned this)

Long story short we presented at LHR at 9pm for the last flight out, in the pouring rain, completely broke (we were early 20's and had been travelling Europe) and are told we can't check in because we don't have the card. Lady Lenny breaks down, the check in staff are frantically calling Singapore to try and work around it, no can do. We end up having to call my father in the middle of the night Oz time and use his credit card to book it over the phone after getting authorisation from Singapore to do it.

We make the flight and get home, but yeh...I'm paranoid about that now. Although ironically I've only been asked for it once in about 10 or so flights with SQ since.

Oh good heavens. And I bet you weren’t the only ones to get caught like that. What an awful story. Glad it kinda worked out for you. A great lesson and maybe the whole concept of this almost needs a sticky on the forum.
 
Yep. Its rare I agree but could trip you up. Singapore Air always asked for it.

This was on the email received on booking. (The reference number showing is now meaningless ;))

View attachment 118917

It is in the terms yes, but in practice they very rarely ask for it.

I have only been asked once, and that was for my daughter for whom I had booked a *A via Krisflyer on Egypt Air out of Ghana.

Initially I thought it was a scam as it was a from a yahoo account as my daughter was checking in and they wanted to sight the card. But it turned out it was legit and so lucky that I did not ignore it! They accepted me emailing a pic (hence my initial thoughts on beinga scam)..

But that is Africa for you when even large businesses can use dodgey sounding emails!
 
It is in the terms yes, but in practice they very rarely ask for it.

I have only been asked once, and that was for my daughter for whom I had booked a *A via Krisflyer on Egypt Air out of Ghana.

Initially I thought it was a scam as it was a from a yahoo account as my daughter was checking in and they wanted to sight the card. But it turned out it was legit and so lucky that I did not ignore it! They accepted me emailing a pic (hence my initial thoughts on beinga scam)..

But that is Africa for you when even large businesses can use dodgey sounding emails!
The thing is, if you’ve been asked for it once then you know it’s a risk not to have it. Lord_Lennys story is really scary.
 
When I actually step back and look at it with some distance, it's a classic 'swiss cheese' situation, all the various holes lined up: Bank went out of business, card was retained, we didn't read the fine print, the duty manager was insisting on checking cards that day, their systems were down so everything needed to be processed manually etc.

Take out one of those 'holes' and we probably make it home with no issues.

Needless to say I now over prepare for trips in terms of documentation etc. :)
 
I had a similar issue. I used Westpac Earth Black Amex to book a hotel in Split, Croatia via Hotels.com (since the hotel I wanted didnt have their own online booking system) for July 2018, back in Sept 2017 which was before the announcement re banks severing ties with Amex.

The conditions on hotels.com said the room would be charged immediately and that card needs to be presented upon check-in.

When Westpac advised the 4-Apr cancellation date, I noticed that the room hadn't been charged yet. So I called hotels.com and was advised there is no way to update the credit card for a future booking and there was also no way they could force the charge through now (before the stay) so i could just show the cancelled card on check-in.

After much back and forth, they transferred me directly to the hotel, who said whilst they also couldn't change the card associated with the booking, they coulf let me pre-pay the accommodation and said I could then use another card at check-in for incidentals. Thinking I'll still need to carry the cancelled one with me as a precaution.

It was a real pain, as my bank issued amex didnt actually expire until 2021 - and I always used it to maximise points earn where accepted without a crazy surcharge. Shame we couldnt have kept cards until their expiry date.

Totally made me paranoid, about checking what other future purchases (theatre/concert tix, hotels, flights) Id also made on the card. Wont be able to cut it up until after I return from Europe Im guessing.

Wonder what happens if the card is stolen, since Westpac wouldnt be able to re-issue a card for a cancelled account.
 
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