Talk Quesada forum

When driving here in September - got to hotel in Chartres - Premiere Classe - and the receptionist said I had not paid in advance. I thought I had - but as I had booked through a hotel search engine a few months ago I thought may be I just reserved it.
The following morning the receptionist said "oh sorry you did pay" but we cannot refund to your card we have to post you a cheque.
The cheque duly arrived a few weeks later so I thought as I have no euro account in the UK I will pay it into our Spanish account.
Tried to do it at the machine but couldn't - so went in branch where I was charged €12 for paying in a €44 cheque.

Lesson learnt !

Ouch! Banks, eh ! I have been stung by RBS in the UK on a cheque written against my RBS euro account being paid into a euro account in Ireland ( of their own subsidiary bank! ) Adding insult to injury was I did it by cheque because the branch staff didn't know how to do an electronic transfer as they weren't used to dealing with euro accounts, even their own ones. ( Well, I do live in the sticks. )

Interesting though that the hotel said they couldn't refund to your card. I thought it was obligatory to pay refunds back to the original payment card, or is that only a UK rule? Would have thought it would be EU wide ( money laundering regs etc...)

Yes, I couldn't understand why they wouldn't put it on my card and they are quite a big hotel chain but I suspect it is a delaying / authorisation issue whereby they can only issue a refund / credit after getting authorisation from head office in Singapore! But not very customer friendly!

My fault - must be more assertive next time

I had a hefty charge on a French cheque which was paid into La CaixaBank
Last year. As it had not been correctly filled in, it was duly returned to Spain from the French bank, and cost another 18 Euros. Could not see what was wrong with the cheque, which was a present, but in the end, the "present" cost me more money than its value!! Be warned!!

Wow - that feels wrong - just out of interest mine was with Caixa Bank as well - but I still blame myself for not being organised at the hotel check-in. I had booked 3 different locations with this hotel group and two were paid in advance and one was just reserved so when she said "you have to pay" although I challenged her - I didn't stand my ground and should have checked my e-mails .

You live and learn