***WEBMASTER ACCESS URGENT INFO*** If you booked the park hotel...
 

...with your epass card, give them a call. I just did and it turns out your reservation is not gaurenteed because they require prepayment for the rooms, and the cards are being declined. I had to give them a different card number in order to keep the reservation.

oops. haha.

Logical but I guess not everyone would think about it.

You are kidding right? Why did you give them your epass card?

I booked the room online using the Virtual Visa in August before the whole thing started, as I'm sure many people did.

In august? Then they should still have held your room unless they just dinged your card now, which is strange.

My guess is they tried a few days after, or very recently. Worth mentioning anyways as the show hotel filled up at the start of september which means that many people may have booked with the epass card before it got blocked. The only other credit card I have is a prepaid virtual visa from my bank that I only ever used on Polish sites because the online card processors here wouldn't take the epass vv, so I had to load that one up and use that instead.

I just had this feeling I should call to make sure that I'm not driving around Amsterdam looking for a room, and it turns out that it is very good that I did.

Bump for the north americans. Would suck to get off a plane and get fucked over.

Konrad,

Thank you very much this is invaluable info.

They probably just did ding the card now. They hold the room with a CC until 72 hours prior, usually once there is a no refund if you cancel.

A lot of Euros really relied on the Visa card and I know a few people that had planned on using their VV at the show and then had to find alternate arrangements, which wasn't easy.

Some more info - if you are sending Money Gram or Western Union to Europe, you can't send more than $3k or the person you sent it to can't get it out - per Euro bank rules.

Good catch k0nr4d.

I'm guessing this ePass fiasco will effect people going to the show on more than just the rooms too.

Have you got a link for that? As far as I know they would have to wait 15 minutes to get it, instead of straight away. But fully unabled?

Not strange at all. Very normal for hotels to do this.

No we found out the hard way. We sent over 5000 Euros and when the person went to withdraw, no luck, five different banks.

So we had to request a refund, now here's the kicker - they only do refunds up to $499, so we had to do 16 refunds to get the cash back. Then we had to send out two separate ones with smaller amounts. Oy vey. Worth it though in the end. =)

Damn, why don't they ever hold these things in London.

wouldnt they do an authorization but not capture the funds? im sure that its no longer valid if the card gets killed, making your reservation no longer valid.

No, since its some discounted rate or some shit they said the rooms are all prepay. They already charged my other card for the room.

Yeah, that can be tricky and it's not disclosed very well. Westin does that all the time with online deals. Once you buy they charge it right then and no refunds. It sucks.

Very strange...

We literally have many cards in life. We need to play the right ones. Good luck.

OH NOOOOOOO WHAT IF U DONT HAVE AN OTHER CARD NUMBER AND U DEPEND ON EPASS FOR YOUR LIFE?????????





j/k

On my fax, i reserved in may, it said nothing about prepay and you could cancel 48 hours before you arrive. I think they checked your card when you said it wasn't valid. It also stated that you can pay directly to the hotel when you leave. So when you don't call them i think they will hold the room, but you have to pay cash or with another card.

No, I phoned them and didn't mention anything about the card. I wanted to make sure everything was ok with the room reservation and parking spot i reserved before I drove 1000km. I asked if everything was ok with the reservation, and then she said it's good that I called because the card was declined and without a card the reservation was not gaurenteed. She also said that the room was pre-pay only. It also said that on the website when I was booking the room.

I b ooked online directly on their site rather then via fax.

whooopsie.

NH Hotel was a prepaid option they dinged you right after you scheduled.