I recently experienced an issue at a Marriott property in South Florida where an unknown $45 bar charge was posted to our room. We did not receive any immediate notification from our bank and only discovered the charge at checkout before heading to a cruise.
When we inquired, we were not shown the signature, and management was unavailable at the time. We were told someone would follow up, but no one contacted us. Eventually, after reviewing the folio and demonstrating that the charge appeared before our check-in time, the charge was removed.
This situation raised concerns about how room charges can be assigned without authorization. I would like to know if there is any way to prevent or block restaurant, bar, or marketplace charges from being billed to a room.
Specifically, I’m wondering if guests can require that all such purchases be paid separately at the time of service instead of being charged to the room, or if using a different payment method is possible.
I’ve also seen reports of larger unauthorized charges being added to rooms and difficulty resolving them, so I’m looking for practical ways to avoid such issues in the future.
0