Pearson New International Edition International pcl tp indd 1

FRONT OFFICE SEMANTICS
Chargeback:
Payment card charges disallowed (reversed) when a cardholder successfully protests the
legitimacy of the charge or because the hotel made an error in processing a charge. When a charge-
back request is initiated by a cardholder, the hotel must respond promptly, or else the request will usu-
ally be granted.
Authorization occurs when the guest’s payment card number is entered in
the processing terminal. Software transmits the credit card number, its expira-
tion date, and the sales total to the hotel’s merchant service provider (MSP).
The MSP transmits the data to the guest’s bank or other financial institution
that issued the card, which will approve or decline the transaction.
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Completion of transaction. A transaction is completed when the total number
of individual credit card transactions (called a batch) completed in a shift (or
day) are summarized and transmitted to the hotel’s MSP. Information about
the batch may be transmitted manually, but more typically it is done electron-
ically. The MSP forwards the pertinent information about each individual
transaction to the proper payment card company (e.g., MasterCard, Visa,
American Express). The payment card company forwards information about