My Priority Club profile contains my stored UK Priority Club VISA card number, and expiry date. This short cut nearly cost me dearly this morning.

Background – For several weeks I have been planning a trip to Geneva. I have a night at the Hilton Heathrow Terminal 5 tonight, and then looked for a hotel in Geneva near the airport. I selected (despite the TripAdvisor reviews), the Crowne Plaza at the airport and duly booked a 21 day advance purchase rate.

This Morning – coming to print off the reservation I found it cancelled, with a cancellation number showing on the page – PANIC! I immediately called the UK reservations number and spoke to a helpful US based agent who looked at the reservation and suggested I called the hotel. It was too early for any management to be there I was told, so I waited until UK Guest Services opened. In the meantime, the nice reservations agent in the US made me a new reservation, for a less nice room at a higher rate – just in case.

07:01 this morning – and Guest Relations opened their phone lines, straight through and in a minute a lovely agent was on the phone to Geneva. ‘Your card was declined, which is why they cancelled the reservation’, she explained. She called the hotel and I went through the number on the card – correct, and at this point I knew my account had lots of free credit, and then we got to the expiry date!

Expiry Date  – Recently I changed my Priority Club VISA card to the new black UK one – more points etc, but unnoticed by me, whilst the card number was the same they had extended the expiry of the card one month – making it come back as declined.

The Outcome – lovely person in Geneva, reinstated the original booking and rate, and looks forward to seeing me tomorrow.

Great outcome, handled professionally and coutesly by everyone and a win for the customer. I am almost looking forward to being there; despite the TripAdvisor reports! (Review from this web site follows)