I don't understand what you're upset about now.

< When you are so tired from your traveling and trying to resume your normal life, you really don't have the energy to scrutinize every item of your credit card...>

This is over dramatic. You must of course "scrutinize" your bill eventually, and your experience proves that you need not do it immediately. But scrutinizing every item on your credit card bill is what adults do when they come home from a vacation, especially if they are not billionaires and a sum like $72 matters to them.

NewbE:

I am not really upset. Annhig's experiences also prove that if everyone who travels has to watch out for various mistakes like that, deliberate or not, it really wet blankets the fun of traveling. And more often than not, it is in their favor instead of yours, believe me. That made me sign.

wmm

wmm, you are making a mountain out of a molehill.
In the time you have spent here you could have easily found the hotel email address , contacted them and cleared it up.

"Why do I have a bad feeling that it is a dirty commercial trick?"

Do you not travel often? Hotels do get a pre-authorization for incidentals on your credit card when you check in. Had you not paid in advance, they would get a pre-authorization for the full amount of your stay.

I'm not sure what went wrong here that the charge appeared on your bill, but the fact that they quickly cancelled the charge means to me that they were acting in good faith.

What would be a wet blanket on a trip for me would be believing that everyone was a out to cheat me.

Whether I've been traveling or not, I always check each charge on my credit card bill every month. You are more likely to be the mischarged in your own country than abroad if only because you make more credit card charges at home than abroad.

>>Anyone could tell me what "authorisation"is? In my traveling and hotel-booking experience, I have never heard anything like that! Taking money for "authorisation" after you are leaving the hotel? <<

MANY hotels place a 'hold' charge on a credit card to cover 'eventualities' and to make sure your cc is good - especially when a booking is prepaid - and then reverse the charges after you have cleared the room. Their e-mail totally explains that . . .

>>Why do I have a bad feeling that it is a dirty commercial trick?<<

Uh - nope.

I've had the pre-authorisation thing done to me over the years. They tend to be in places where the whole hotel/customer trust thing has broken down. Sad but true, if I get the choice I tend to avoid places that do it but sometimes you just have to go with the flow. It can be a real pain, especially if the sum is large and my credit account is small.

If the credit hold got through to appearing on your credit card bill then their systems are bad and I "would suspect" they have policy of leaving the charge on and hoping you would not notice. If it were me I would never use that chain again, I would also write to the manager asking for a full explanation of their systems and a confirmation that such activities will never happen again to anyone else, but then I don't like this sort of thing to happen to me. Did you say Raj, right they ar off my list.

Good news you got it fixed, well done, onwards and upwards :-)