Metropol

Does anyone know why this would happen.

I stayed in a Premier Inn on 12/13 Feb up in the West Midlands for a friends wedding. Today (yes 13 April) I have just been charged for that visit . Much to my irritation - if only because I thought I had managed to get a free stay even though I had provided all my details when booking.

The west midlands is a Third World enclave where they're still using the second-hand technology that we gave them at the end of the last century, so the inconvenient delay you experienced is nothing out of the ordinary.

Meanwhile back in the real world, I'd suggest a computer error or lousy administration, or bank procedural error.

Had similar before, explanation seems to relate to the charge arriving into the computer system of the credit card company before any pre authorisation check-in credit card authority. The late check in authority holding up the processing of the debit entry, until manual checks are perfomed sometime later. Single night stays especially at weekends with batch processing on the monday following being the usual cause for this error and the subsequent delay. Even now some retailers are not working 24/7/365 with their card operations.

You should contact your credit card company and report the problem.