4853 – No-Show Hotel Charge

PREVIEW

A high-level overview

You received this chargeback because you either charged the cardholder when you shouldn’t have, didn’t tell the cardholder about the no-show fee before finalising the reservation, or charged an amount that was more than the quoted amount.

Here are some situations where a no-show fee is not warranted:

• The cardholder cancelled the reservation before your deadline had passed.
• The cardholder did, in fact, use the accommodations.
• You arranged for alternate accommodations when your hotel wasn’t able to provide a room — but charged the fee anyway.

In most situations, a chargeback with this reason code must be filed within 120 days of the transaction processing date.

If you — the merchant — have the required data and supporting documents, you can fight a no-show hotel chargeback. At most, you will have 45 days to respond.

Here are some tips to help prevent this type of chargeback in the future:

• Fulfill all qualified cancellation requests promptly.
• Clearly explain your cancellation and no-show policy, and have the cardholder agree to the terms before finalising the reservation.
• Train your staff so guests won’t accidentally be charged a no-show fee if the accommodations were used or you offered alternate accommodations.

NOTE

Because this chargeback impacts a very small portion of merchants, we aren’t going to elaborate on what causes this dispute or how to respond. If you are a merchant or acquirer and need additional details about this reason code, we recommend you consult the latest version of the Mastercard chargeback guide. You’ll find a section about chargebacks resulting from no-show hotel charges in chapter 2 (dual message system chargebacks).