The mysterious missing hotel charges
Jan. 5th, 2026 01:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutI’ve tried writing this repeatedly.
I called Residence Inn again. Turns out when my friend checked in, my card declined. I didn’t spot the email fraud alert that triggered that until after the trip was over. At checkin, he put the hotel on his card. We saw each other every day subsequently for a week. He never once mentioned the decline. He also did not mention the decline for the week after the trip, while I was busy talking to everyone in sight about the weird failure of the hotel to charge me for first all of the rooms and then just the one room.
Today, I found out what happened, got the charges moved from his card to mine, and then called him to find out if this was indeed what happened. Yes, it was.
On the trip, he canceled out for him and his kids on the escape room (totally fine!). He’d said yes to that repeatedly for literally over a month, until we were about 5 minutes into the 4 hour can’t cancel any more window. And then he canceled, because B. did not want to, and sibling N. wanted to show solidarity and so pere was going to as well. Also fine, in the event, we got the money back AND didn’t have to do the room with strangers so win win all around. And also, WTF.
Both times, when I was asking him what on earth, he said the same thing, “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
Not traveling with this person ever again. Not only not in a plane. Not in a car. Not over a border. I’ll go to dinner, and that’s about it. Whatever is going on there, I cannot trust. Really, really, really bad stuff can happen when people don’t speak up.
ETA: If you are thinking, but wait, yes, I will happily still travel with the kids, individually, together, with their other parent. I’m totally prepared to revisit this if communication is, er, openly communicated about and improves. Do I think there is some masked neurodivergence going on here and the masking is deteriorating. Yeah, probably. Do I have a plan for how to start excavating this? Why, yes, yes I do! And that’s going to involve offering to pay for relevant assessments for the kids first, because those kinds of evaluations are often not covered by insurance, and might be profoundly helpful and often parents get diagnosed as a result of their kids getting a diagnosis. If the relevant assessments have already been done, then, shrug, I guess work with whatever is going on there to be as supportive as I can and to avoid overwhelming folks with attractive vacation opportunities that are ultimately really stressful.
I called Residence Inn again. Turns out when my friend checked in, my card declined. I didn’t spot the email fraud alert that triggered that until after the trip was over. At checkin, he put the hotel on his card. We saw each other every day subsequently for a week. He never once mentioned the decline. He also did not mention the decline for the week after the trip, while I was busy talking to everyone in sight about the weird failure of the hotel to charge me for first all of the rooms and then just the one room.
Today, I found out what happened, got the charges moved from his card to mine, and then called him to find out if this was indeed what happened. Yes, it was.
On the trip, he canceled out for him and his kids on the escape room (totally fine!). He’d said yes to that repeatedly for literally over a month, until we were about 5 minutes into the 4 hour can’t cancel any more window. And then he canceled, because B. did not want to, and sibling N. wanted to show solidarity and so pere was going to as well. Also fine, in the event, we got the money back AND didn’t have to do the room with strangers so win win all around. And also, WTF.
Both times, when I was asking him what on earth, he said the same thing, “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
Not traveling with this person ever again. Not only not in a plane. Not in a car. Not over a border. I’ll go to dinner, and that’s about it. Whatever is going on there, I cannot trust. Really, really, really bad stuff can happen when people don’t speak up.
ETA: If you are thinking, but wait, yes, I will happily still travel with the kids, individually, together, with their other parent. I’m totally prepared to revisit this if communication is, er, openly communicated about and improves. Do I think there is some masked neurodivergence going on here and the masking is deteriorating. Yeah, probably. Do I have a plan for how to start excavating this? Why, yes, yes I do! And that’s going to involve offering to pay for relevant assessments for the kids first, because those kinds of evaluations are often not covered by insurance, and might be profoundly helpful and often parents get diagnosed as a result of their kids getting a diagnosis. If the relevant assessments have already been done, then, shrug, I guess work with whatever is going on there to be as supportive as I can and to avoid overwhelming folks with attractive vacation opportunities that are ultimately really stressful.