Can you just reverse the charges?

One person makes all the reservations, all the deposits are on her card, all the rooms arrive and they want me to refund her and charge them. Reserver does not understand she PAID for all the rooms. She thinks she did a DEPOSIT. One and the same thing.

Yeah, you can. You lose a bit on it, but c'est la vie. Do you charge it all upfront? Could you have not done a hold on the account and therefore been assured the money, but still been able to process separately?

Eric Arthur Blair said:

Yeah, you can. You lose a bit on it, but c'est la vie. Do you charge it all upfront? Could you have not done a hold on the account and therefore been assured the money, but still been able to process separately?.

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There was no indication in advance that everyone was going to want to pay it themselves otherwise I would have just done the deposit on one room.
I hate when one person holds the rooms and doesn't collect from their friends. They're all annoyed even tho they all knew in advance that their rooms were paid for (they all got their own confirmation).

Why can't they get this? I am sure your confirmation was clear. I've had this happen as well. What the heck did she think a deposit was? Mind boggling.
I do not send each room their own confirmation when 1 person has booked & paid the deposit. I will list all the rooms and the names & totals by each. Let the person that reserves forward it to everyone that way it is known from the beginning that SHE/HE paid the deposit of $X for each room.
Guess maybe it is time to add one more item when confirming such a reservation and that is that there will be a fee of X to reverse & divide charges on arrival.

I just had one who called me because we hadn't credited her card for the nominal deposit ($25) we take at booking. No, I said we subtract that from the total for the room and charge the balance when you check in. She just kept saying 'the way it's usually done' and 'the way most other places do it'. I think she was confusing a 'hold' on the card - like from a car rental place - with a deposit, which is an advance payment.
I don't know how to do a hold that would last until check-in with my credit card processor. What if the card is cancelled before check-in? - we've been burned by a no-show with that. Most hotels do exactly what we do - take one night (or more) deposit when you make the reservation, and credit it to you at check-in. We just stayed at a hotel last week which did exactly that.

Tell them they would have to pay an additional 3% to cover the extra cc fees if you did that. They'll back down.

Madeleine said:

Eric Arthur Blair said:

Yeah, you can. You lose a bit on it, but c'est la vie. Do you charge it all upfront? Could you have not done a hold on the account and therefore been assured the money, but still been able to process separately?.

Click to expand...

There was no indication in advance that everyone was going to want to pay it themselves otherwise I would have just done the deposit on one room.
I hate when one person holds the rooms and doesn't collect from their friends. They're all annoyed even tho they all knew in advance that their rooms were paid for (they all got their own confirmation).
.

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I tell guests with multiple room bookings that each room must provide their own credit card number to confirm, unless one person is paying for all. It only took one time with one person confirming all with his credit card, and then one room cancelling at the last minute, and me charging that one person (that still showed up) for the other person's vacant room for me to change my policy. The situation was VERY awkward. If everyone provides their own cc, then they are the only one that has to pay a cancellation fee. It has worked for me, and no one has ever questioned this policy.

Yeah, I just wouldn't do that. They need to settle up among themselves, not put it all on the innkeeper to straighten out all that, and suffer processing charges.
The one who puts all these charges on their card should be the one who's taking it all on, and the others should work with them to work it out together. I wouldn't think of troubling the innkeeper for something like this.

Madeleine said:

Eric Arthur Blair said:

Yeah, you can. You lose a bit on it, but c'est la vie. Do you charge it all upfront? Could you have not done a hold on the account and therefore been assured the money, but still been able to process separately?.

Click to expand...

There was no indication in advance that everyone was going to want to pay it themselves otherwise I would have just done the deposit on one room.
I hate when one person holds the rooms and doesn't collect from their friends. They're all annoyed even tho they all knew in advance that their rooms were paid for (they all got their own confirmation).
.

Click to expand...

Annoying, but it's easier to just eat the processing charges and smile than to let them have any bad feelings about the transaction.