In-Flight CC purchase - not appearing on statement.

T

TheShark

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I made an in-flight purchase on Ryanair , using my Visa card back in June , the purchase came to €65. Flight attendent swiped my card and gave me a receipt , complete with authorisation code. Now over 2 months later this purchase has not appeared on my statement. I like to keep my accounts up-to date but am baffled at this one. Do these gizmo terminals that they use process transactions in real time or are they processed at a later stage? Dont want it hanging over me for too long.
 
In March 2001 I purchased a one-way flight to the USA. From my recollection I thought it cost about €315.
I didn't get charged for it 'til December 2001! I got charged about €395.

I no longer had the receipts or flight details or anything like that so I didn't chase up the travel agent (I know... travel agent.... but it was 2001) about what seemed to be an over charge.

But my point is, it was 9 months later!

It has happened, on occasion, that I've never been charged for purchases I've made. Especially when I first got my AmEx Blue and used it in a supermarket in Cabinteely!
 
This has happened to me as well.

It took about 7 months for them to process the transaction, I had to ring the credit card company as i had no knowledge of this transaction, i had totally forgot that i used it on a flight. It also put me over the limit, cause i had forgotten about it.
 
hopefully it wont come through, they may have forgotten it, imagine something free in this country..!
 
I made the purchase from the duty-free trolley on board (After Shave & Sweets) , the flight attendant used a chip & PIN terminal for the transaction ,what I am wondering is was the transaction processed there and then in real-time or did the device simply record the card details for processing at a later stage? , If so how did it issue an authorisation code?
Just seems odd that it has'nt appeared on my statement yet as Ryanair flight bookings appear almost instantly.
 
After Authorisation the transaction is usally Settled in a batch process with other transactions. Although the Authorisation can reduce your credit limit it's not until Settlement that money is deducted from your account. Sometimes Settlement can fail or be delayed, though not usually this long.
 
TheShark said:
I made the purchase from the duty-free trolley on board (After Shave & Sweets) , the flight attendant used a chip & PIN terminal for the transaction ,what I am wondering is was the transaction processed there and then in real-time or did the device simply record the card details for processing at a later stage? , If so how did it issue an authorisation code?
Click to expand...

Some merchants are allowed authorise transactions offline for particular cards and below certain amounts. The POS itself generates the authorisation code and the transaction is sent to the bank later on. This is no different to the way credit card transactions were done years ago with the emboss-reader.
 
I made a purchase on a Ryanair flight in January this year and it did not come through on my CC statement till early April. I agree, it is an absolute pain....in my case I had negotiated the interest on the existing balance to 1.9%, but that was contingent on no more purchases!! I was able to sort it out but it took numerous phone calls and loads of time. I really did not want to lose the brilliant interest rate for the sakeof 35.99.
 
Why not preload the cc with the amount? Then if the charge comes through it will be paid straight away?
 
chrisboy said:
Why not preload the cc with the amount? Then if the charge comes through it will be paid straight away?
Click to expand...
The charge will be paid as soon as it comes in no problem , I rarely use my CC and when I do I clear the balance monthly so not to pay interest ,its just frustrating that its taking so long to appear.
 
What has happened here, is that Ryanair have not batched the particular terminal. If the transaction appears on your statement after 6 months from the transaction date, you have the right to contact your credit card company and initiate a chargeback for the full amount.
 
Something similar happened to me at the luton duty free un Mar 2008 after a trip to london. I checked off all recepits from the trip and was left with the luton one. One and half years later and still no charge. About this time last year i was in luton airport again and the card was debited before the plane landed in galway.
 
It's not just on airlines this happens, I purchased an item in Halfords in January and it only showed up in the August statement, also a couple of years back a credit card receipt from Westport house came in exactly one year after the transaction occured; it's such a pain.
 
Blackberry said:
What has happened here, is that Ryanair have not batched the particular terminal. If the transaction appears on your statement after 6 months from the transaction date, you have the right to contact your credit card company and initiate a chargeback for the full amount.
Click to expand...

Chargeback because its over 6 months? Is that new?
 
There was a cinema in Dublin which used to accept Amex on their website but never seemed to pass on the charge. I can only imagine they had no merchant account with Amex so they couldn't actually get the money from them, and if they couldn't get the money from them then Amex wouldn't be passing on the charge to me.

Someone, somewhere, wised up eventually and they stopped taking Amex.

The thing with batching is that sometimes the batches fail, or (rarely) someone loses the terminal or for some other reason the transaction can't be uploaded. Some transactions may be approved and processed in real time, but most of them are done offline and only processed when the batch is submitted. If the batch doesn't get submitted, you don't get charged.

z
 
This happened with us when we purchased a cat box from pet shop. The charge didn't come through for months, so my wife kept the receipt in the to be processed pile. Nearly a year later the charge finally went through, and it took us a while to work out what it was. About a month later the charge was mysteriously refunded, but we decided not to question why.
 
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