HI Belfast – using intermediate payment provider. Scam or just quirky?

[iDoc]

Recently booked an advance purchase res at HI Belfast, via the IHG webpage.
No payment taken from the details I gave, but a week later, I have received an email asking for payment via the 3rd party Prommt.

I was about to delete instinctively, but the amount is the correct amount I anticpated, and no payment had been taken from the original reservation, and so is this HI doing something weird – and not spam?

The header of the email shows it as from:
.. Holiday Inn Belfast City Centre <noreply@prommt.net>
.. reply-to: ravikant.yadav@andrashouse.co.uk

And has a direct link to a Prommt checkout page.

I don’t see an IHG customer service email I could forward it to, to check authenticity before paying….

What do you think??!

[freckles]

Given that email address I would contact the HI directly to check

[tobynow]

I’d be very careful here — see the recent scams on booking.com, although this was booked direct, their system could still have been hacked in a similar way. I’d call the hotel to check, or contact IHG centrally to check.

[iDoc]

Thanks for the advice both – I’ll contact the hotel.

[Grant]

If you Google Andras House you’ll find that they are a NI based hospitality company and list a number of IHG branded and other ‘chain’ hotels on their website.

https://www.andrashouse.co.uk/about-us.html

[iDoc]

Yes, looks legit – frustrating they don’t warn customers in advance..

Reply from their reservations dept:
“Yes I can confirm that the below payment link has come from us, we are unable to process payments directly from guests cards so we send a secure payment link for you to process the payment yourself.”

[John]

Interesting. I had a prepaid stay there in May and they took the payment from my Amex directly.

The merchant name was DAYSHOTELBELFAST BELFAST. The Amex IHG offer credited the next day.

[robkeane]

That hotel used to be a days hotel before IHG took it on.