Glitch drops decimal from hotel bills

Thousands of guests at Holiday Inns and their sister hotels were billed amounts that even room service, pay-per-view movies and a few stolen towels couldn't explain: $6,500 to $21,000 per night.

A credit processing error dropped the decimal point in bills for about 26,000 people staying at Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express and Crowne Plaza hotels last week. The guests were charged 100 times what they owed.

A charge of $100, for example, ballooned to $10,000, busting the credit limits of many cardholders and temporarily overdrawing the bank accounts of customers who paid with debit cards.

Atlanta-based Six Continents Hotels, which owns the three chains, said the glitch showed up on bills from Oct. 24 through Sunday. The hotels' credit processor said most banks had reversed the bad charges by Friday.