I recently thought I found a great 4 star hotel offer for $300+ for two nights on the booking page of a booking engine - no currency was specified, but when I was charged, it came out to be $500. Obviously charged in USD. When I saw the price, I tried to pursue a refund but as it was short notice, I would have been out of pocket for an error that would have taken time to dispute. I had a fantastic stay at the hotel, so didn't want to request a refund from the hotel. But, if the stay was horrible, what criteria would affect my ability to push for a refund or worst case scenario chargeback? Bearing in mind, this wasn't the hotel's fault, namely the booking engine and it's lack of geolocation.
Hotel Booking Charged in USD instead of AUD
RockinIt on 09/08/2022 - 21:57
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booking engine
What site?
But, if the stay was horrible, what criteria would affect my ability to push for a refund or worst case scenario chargeback?
You can't do a chargeback because you didn't like the stay or you because you got charged in USD when you thought it was in AUD.
Call out the website to help us when we're booking for hotels in the future.
Bookety. Checkout process via mobile doesn't show the currency however, on reflection, PC version shows the currency in the footer, but it was a last minute booking so I ended assuming (Yes, when I assume it makes an ass out of you and me.)
Do your own reserch first! Their website is poor quality, half of the images won't even load correctly. At the bottom of the page, there are country list with only US and Canada to select and huge currency list hmmmm… like someone is going to pay in Danish Krona in Canada. And also it's not well known .com website.
I got done on the app with hotels.com once. I'd reinstalled it onto my new phone and never realised that the default was usd. Not mentioned anywhere on checkout. It was only when I saw my cc bill that I realised. Price was still good so all ok, but I checked the app settings and then updated to aud.
Naming the site would allow us to check it out to see what's going on…
is it priceline.com ?
They got stuff in USD too, quite confusing.
ACCC have launched a lawsuit against Airbnb for this issue actually
If the online booking agency has operations in Australia.. they can get nailed also.
User error, if your using a travel aggregator and directs you to a .com website, and the booking is half the price, common sense would suggest this is could be USD.
The big ones, booking.com, Agoda, Hotels.com, trip.com are all .com
Simple fact, if site domain name is end by .com - it's globe site and use USD.
If site domain name end by .com.au, most are using AUD.
Report the booking website to the booking engine.
If it doesn't specify Australia or AUD anywhere, its USD. There are plenty of websites like this unfortunately. The USA believe they own the dollar.
Most booking engines clearly show you the currency on checkout. Which one was this that supposedly didn't?