Hi Jim: Your intentions were all well, you made arrangements to pay your bill, your responsibility to the hotel ends there. However, your responsibility to yourself would have just started there. You should have brought it to someones attention, whether it was acted on or not that was your responsibility. If you would have done this you would not be feeling that you cheated anyone. You are probably a really decent person and you feel like you let yourself down. Once I was at the grocery store and noticed that the sticker price on the chicken was wrong and showed it to the butcher so he could correct it. I could have just taken it the grocery clerk would not have known but it was up to me to bring it to there attention. You know what the butcher did, he thanked me, took the rest off the shelf and the two packages I wanted repriced he initialled and gave it to me at the wrong price as a bonus fjor saving him money and for bringing his mistake to his attention. That chicken tasted better I am sure than it would have if I would have knowingly taken it at the wrong price. If you would have made an effort to correct this 2 yrs ago you would not have posted this to clear up this issue, it would have been long gone in your mind. Hope you have a wonderful holiday next time you travel, and that the lingering reminder of the holiday is the wonderful time you had, not pacing for the bill to arrive. Karen

My, my Karen, aren't we just perfect? Give the guy a break, and stop thinking you are the perfect human.

Karen makes a good point. I have had cases when there were small errors, like I pay the bartender a $10 for a five dollar drink and got a $20 back in change ( the bill was in the wrong slot). I did tell the bar tender, and he thanked me profusely and offered me a free drink. Because the difference in the till would have come out of his salary.<BR><BR>Here are some possibilities of why this happened 1) The hotel clerk accidentally gave the person both receipts instead of keeping the original. This has happened to me, and I usually notify the clerk.<BR>2) The hotel clerk lost the receipt. With all those charges around the hotel, the various departments keep track of what was spent (eg. sold 3 lobsters, should have the price of those lobsters paid to hotel). So the hotel would eventually discover the error.<BR><BR>If the clerk made the mistake, which happens in stores all the time, the store simply takes it out of that person's salary. Painful, but nothing to feel guilty about - he/she should be more careful.<BR><BR>3) The credit card could have paid the hotel and forgot to charge the person. I look at it two ways. If this is the case, the credit card company is getting paid by you for any lost charges by the very high interest rates. Which is actually how credit card companies survive loan defaults. <BR><BR>And it is possible that after two years the card company could charge you. I paid a bill through my checking account two years ago - one of those automatic bill paying systems. Turns out a mistake was made and two years later the company send me a late payment letter. My bank made an error and didn't send in the payment. I ended up paying them after two years.<BR><BR>Even if you get a new credit card, you still have the same number and the same account.<BR><BR>What gets me about this "hypothetical" situation is that any hotel would ignore what must be at least a $1500-$2000 bill. If you are staying at a nice resort, we are talking $300-$400 per night, meals about $100 per day, drinks, etc. Must be a really inept hotel staff.

What is shocking to me, is the fact that the entire bill, and record of Jim's stay, was not posted into a computer system of soem kind. I wouldn't think any resort isn't managed this way. So simply "losing a CC receipt doesn't sound logical at all. I'm guessing it was human error upon data entry into the computer system either at the hotel or the CC company. <BR><BR>I know I wouldn't say anyhting either. Jim did his part, now he get to enjoy the benefit of the corporation screw up. <BR><BR>And for the person that mentioned CC rates going up because of this, well I disagree, as my CC rates are locked in, and never change. Maybe some folks have cards with flucuating rates, which seems a bit archaic.<BR><BR>Jim, you are lucky bastard, sure wish this happened to me!!

Here is a totally new perspective....<BR><BR>As a statistician I feel that errors are evenly distributed around zero. In other words, for every traveller overcharged there is one undercharged. This means that for the hotel this is a wash.<BR><BR>Don't pay.

I'd be ecstatic if that happened to me. Finally, something in my favor. How many times have I been double charged for an item on the grocery bill, or ripped off at McDonald's (one time I even got a cheeseburger without the burger), and barely ever these days do I even get a simple apology; and never anymore will they offer free item or a discount for my time and trouble. Screw them. Good for you Jim! I wouldn't feel guilty about a thing! You did your part.

Here's my story. It is about a holiday company (and actually about Asia) but fits in well with the question of what you would do.<BR>When I booked my holiday I paid the deposit then gave them my cc number so that they could take final payment on a certain date.( I was going to Hong Kong , Bangkok and Koh Samui and also had hotels booked.) <BR>I checked my account a few days after the due date and no payment had been taken. I phoned the company(BA) to point this out and they said that they HAD taken the payment. After rechecking my cc account I phoned back and they still insisted that they had been paid! ( Even while I was insisting that they hadn't!!)<BR>I discussed this with my husband. His view was that BA was obviously totally incompetent, I had phoned twice, and so we should just let it go. We should keep the money aside for a couple of years and then go on a great holiday. <BR>I really didn't feel good about this. However, I have to admit that my misgivings were probably not so much on moral ground. I kept imagining what it would feel like to "found out" and even worse , for it to happen when we arrived at the airport.<BR>Anyway, I tried again. The mistake was realised and the money taken. There was absolutely no acknowledgement from them about their mistake in the first place or the trouble I took to sort it out. My holiday cost was &pound;4500. I wrote to complain and got 3 bottles of wine. I don't suppose I will ever be in the same situation again but perhaps I won't bother chasing it up if I am!

Let the hotel eat it! they charge too much as it is, Im glad somebody got over on them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Once took a trip with my husband to St. Lucia, booked the whole trip with one credit card through a travel agency, TourScan. They charged for two airfaires and then inexplicably credited one of the airfares back to my credit card ($550). I called when I got the bill and they said NO, they had been paid. I let it go. Well, on December 27th of that year, the owner of the company called to let me know he'd been auditing the books for the year and had already re-charged my credit card. I was gracious, mentioned that I knew and had tried unsuccessfully to correct the mistake. I also pointed out that it was certainly a rude time of year to charge my credit card another $550, but that I understood. He agreed, but made no offer to postpone the charge.<BR><BR>Now that I'm forty-something, I've discovered the old adage is really true: What goes around DOES come around. Doing the right thing has great payoffs, but sometimes it can take decades!