Will Amex return my money?

Hi everyone,

My partner and I stayed at a Holiday Inn during our holiday last week and I have used my employee account to book this to get the discounts.

We paid for the accommodation using my partners card and I used my Amex card to pay for the food and drinks and we checked out just fine.

I looked at my statement for my Amex account this morning and it says that Holiday Inn has charged me £300 for no reason and after a call with Holiday Inn, they were very rude and said that I had no proof of being an employee and they won't return my money until I provide them with a payslip.

I find this unacceptable as I have been using this benefit for a while now and this is the first time that this has happened, they didn't even bother to contact me first, they just made that unauthorised charge from my account with no warning. I refuse to give them a payslip and have contacted American Express to dispute the transaction and they said that they will investigate the situation.

Has anyone had any experiences like this and do you think that Amex will return the amount that's charged?

Many thanks

When you booked the hotel, did they know that you were using a employee discount? If you provide them with a payslip, they will return the money? Sometimes mistakes happen and although you were not happy, showing them a payslip seems like the easiest thing to do solve the problem rather than going through the hassle of applying for the chargeback from AMEX.

Yes, they knew that I was using an employee discount and the normal procedure would be to check the ID of the guest to make sure that it matches the reservation and they didn't do that when we checked in. I don't think I'll be happy with providing them with a payslip after all the hassle that they have caused, on top of being very rude.

Has anyone had any experiences like this and do you think that Amex will return the amount that's charged?

I suspect Amex will take the disputed amount off your account, and contact Holiday Inn. Holiday Inn will say you claimed an employee discount but refused to prove that you were entitled to it. Amex will then reinstate the disputed amount on your account and expect you to pay it.

It will be much easier to accept that this is human error, jump through this minor hoop and get it resolved that way.