Pre-Paying for International travel ?

[bazzaw]

It's Sunday night now and I can't get any help from my bank - I tried to book and pay for a hotel room in Japan online using my CC and the hotel reported back to me that the CC had been declined. Tried again and declined again! . Now I had/have not yet advised my Bank that I am going to Japan for a period in the future but I will do so to avoid them closing down my CC when I use it while there. So I am a bit surprised that this has happened as I have purchased "stuff" from overseas online before without this problem.  Any thoughts please? I will try to call the Bank tomorrow - but Banks are very reluctant to talk to customers these days trying to push you towards their Apps.  

[Aus Traveller]

As Scarlett O'Hara said "Tomorrow is another day".  We have noticed that banks are more inclined to decline payments if they consider that they might be fraudulent, than they used to and some banks are more inclined to take this course of action than others. I suppose we should be glad of that. I am sure you will sort it out tomorrow.🙂

[Cbtours]

21 minutes ago, bazzaw said:

It's Sunday night now and I can't get any help from my bank - I tried to book and pay for a hotel room in Japan online using my CC and the hotel reported back to me that the CC had been declined. Tried again and declined again! . Now I had/have not yet advised my Bank that I am going to Japan for a period in the future but I will do so to avoid them closing down my CC when I use it while there. So I am a bit surprised that this has happened as I have purchased "stuff" from overseas online before without this problem.  Any thoughts please? I will try to call the Bank tomorrow - but Banks are very reluctant to talk to customers these days trying to push you towards their Apps.  

Can you book it through booking.com which though we usually try to go through direct to hotel, we’ve used booking.vom over last few years with great success and good savings.

[Mareblu]

Couldn’t agree more.  We’ve consistently used Booking.com for years.  Easy to control your account, too.  Lately, we’ve actually used this platform for transfers, too. On occasions, though, the room/suite we really liked was not available through Booking.com, so we’ve gone direct to the hotel’s website.  With this platform, you can choose to pay on arrival, usually.

[icat2000]

Does your credit card have two way authentication. Ours does. So for transactions over $100 it sends a text to our mobile with a code which we have to enter before the transaction is processed.

 

I also too use booking.com and always select hotels that will take your booking and then you pay on the day.

Edited February 25 by icat2000

[JJK2008]

DITTO with Booking.com. They make the reservation and then let you pay upon arrival at the hotel. Never had an issue with them even for cancellations. 

[Mareblu]

Yes to both above posts.  We never select the “non refundable” option, and opt to pay at the hotel.  We're also careful to advise our bank of overseas travel in advance

[MicCanberra]

I am sure you can get it sorted, sometimes it is just a glitch.

Recently my wife's card was declined for what was a $7 amount while overseas, my card which is the secondary card on her account, worked.

[Aus Traveller]

On Saturday night a $72 transaction on my husband's ANZ card with an overseas entity was declined by the bank and his card cancelled. He was very happy as he had authorised $2 and (according to the bank) the company kept trying to get their $72. We don't know if they would have gone back for a larger amount if their initial $72 worked.

 

I am sure Barry will work it out today. The suggestions of booking through a third party were good.

[arxcards]

I am another that will book refundable accommodation with a booking site like booking.com. Often it is just a banker that we will cancel if we can find a better last-minute deal. I prefer to pay at the hotel when checking-in, whenever possible.

[bazzaw]

10 hours ago, Cbtours said:

Can you book it through booking.com which though we usually try to go through direct to hotel, we’ve used booking.vom over last few years with great success and good savings.

This booking is through Booking.com - they have several means of payment but I think it depends on the requirements of the hotel. This one involved the hotel claiming payment before the date of accommodation. There seems to be no way I can get back into this booking to change it to pay either now or on the day. I did also have another hotel booked to be paid on the day - I could go back into that booking and pay it now. I don't want hickups when away !! 

Edited February 25 by bazzaw

[Mareblu]

31 minutes ago, bazzaw said:

This booking is through Booking.com - they have several means of payment but I think it depends on the requirements of the hotel. This one involved the hotel claiming payment before the date of accommodation. There seems to be no way I can get back into this booking to change it to pay either now or on the day. I did also have another hotel booked to be paid on the day - I could go back into that booking and pay it now. I don't want hickups when away !! 

If you click your a/c under your id at top of page, then go to “my trips” (or similar, without looking) you should be able to edit or cancel every single item.  I did this just the other day.  Sometimes, when you make the original reservation, Booking.com advises that a particular hotel may draw down the funds closer to the booking date.  Maybe that’s what happened here, but you should always be able to get a refund from Booking.com, which is the original purchaser.

[Blackduck59]

I just had a similar problem through booking dot com. I gave a current and valid card to reserve our food on Sydney and got an "invalid card" notice. I have resubmitted the card so we'll see. Of course the power is out here so I'm trying to fix it on my phone. 

[Mareblu]

One thing I forgot to mention is that when we paid in advance for a transfer (through Booking.com) from Southampton to Heathrow recently, our bank sent a number code to use to verify it was definitely being made on our behalf.  This was before we notified the bank the other day that we’d be overseas in coming months.  Transfers require payment on booking, but they can still be cancelled, with a full Booking.com refund, close to the transfer date.  Had I not confirmed with the code, I’m sure our bank would have disallowed the payment.

[OzKiwiJJ]

I use Lastminute.com these days, or book directly with the hotel depending on which gives me the best deal. We had no problems with our Japan trip last year using both methods, one for each of the hotels. We use Latitude 28 Degrees credit cards for overseas travel. 

[Blackduck59]

I emailed the hotel via the link on booking dot com and received a reply that the reservation was indeed valid. They also reminded me that I had to have the actual card and photo ID when I check in. I wonder if I will have the same problem again as we book the rest of the accommodation for the great Australian Meet and Greet tour. It's a funny thing I never had that problem when we booked the the other 2 since cancelled trips.

[Mareblu]

We've never been told that we have to have the actual card you book with.  If you're not paying until you arrive, any card should suffice.  Maybe it's a way to ensure international guests will actually arrive.  Seems a tad strange.  Europe has always required your passport, which they make a copy of, so maybe we're moving to that now.  I don't know why a photo ID is necessary.  We've never had to show photo ID in Australia.  As Mario just said, "all they want is your credit card"😉.  I've just sent you an email, Lyle.

[Blackduck59]

Got it. We did book the Sebel and the reservation is confirmed. We will check out Melbourne possibilities in a couple weeks when the one year booking window opens.

[bazzaw]

All fixed now!! Could get no sense from the bank. They claim that there is no reason for the cc to have been declined - it is fully active (just bought a couple of bottles of red with it) Booking agency basically arranged for the hotel to contact me, they gave me a link to pay for the booking, my cc was declined again so I tried my wifes cc from a different bank - BINGO! went through immediately. Lesson is that all these technological wonders - Apps, online booking agencies - all work wonderfully , until they dont . Then it is almost impossible to contact them to work out what is going wrong!!!

[possum52]

18 hours ago, bazzaw said:

All fixed now!! Could get no sense from the bank. They claim that there is no reason for the cc to have been declined - it is fully active (just bought a couple of bottles of red with it) Booking agency basically arranged for the hotel to contact me, they gave me a link to pay for the booking, my cc was declined again so I tried my wifes cc from a different bank - BINGO! went through immediately. Lesson is that all these technological wonders - Apps, online booking agencies - all work wonderfully , until they dont . Then it is almost impossible to contact them to work out what is going wrong!!!

Crazy, how cards won't work. Yesterday I ordered a digital copy of a death registration from the UK General Register Office for my family history research. I have ordered registrations/certificates in the past using the same card, which I use for all online purchases, but yesterday the website wouldn't accept it - for a whole $4.83. I then tried my husband's card and bingo! It worked, a card attached to the same account. 

[joejoe 59]

20 hours ago, Mareblu said:

We've never been told that we have to have the actual card you book with.  If you're not paying until you arrive, any card should suffice.  Maybe it's a way to ensure international guests will actually arrive.  Seems a tad strange.  Europe has always required your passport, which they make a copy of, so maybe we're moving to that now.  I don't know why a photo ID is necessary.  We've never had to show photo ID in Australia.  As Mario just said, "all they want is your credit card"😉.  I've just sent you an email, Lyle.

We had to show our passports in Fiji in 2022. They took them & photo copied or scanned them, which i felt a bit weird about.

[Mareblu]

58 minutes ago, possum52 said:

Crazy, how cards won't work. Yesterday I ordered a digital copy of a death registration from the UK General Register Office for my family history research. I have ordered registrations/certificates in the past using the same card, which I use for all online purchases, but yesterday the website wouldn't accept it - for a whole $4.83. I then tried my husband's card and bingo! It worked, a card attached to the same account. 

How frustrating, Leigh.  It seems to be a common occurrence.

[possum52]

4 hours ago, Mareblu said:

How frustrating, Leigh.  It seems to be a common occurrence.

It is Linda. At least I wasn't trying to book a cruise or accommodation. 😀