What to do now
- Screenshot what you have — the restaurant's page, the time you tried, any confirmation screen. Save any reference number, payment status and email too.
- Check the reservation list and contact the platform or restaurant. Ask whether a booking exists before making another one. If the first attempt failed, CatchTable Global, a restaurant reservation app for visitors, may offer another booking route.
- Ask your hotel to phone, with the date, time and party size — “Asking your hotel to book a restaurant”. The restaurant may still require a deposit.
- Contact the restaurant directly or ask 1330 about language assistance, if you have no desk to ask — “Phoning a restaurant when the apps fail”.
- If your confirmation conflicts with what staff can see, show the reference and screenshot. Ask them to check the date, time, party size and booking channel. Do not make a duplicate reservation while the original remains unresolved.
Repeated payment attempts can create more pending transactions without resolving the original problem. Establish the booking and payment status before retrying.
One possible cause: merchant payment settings
A restaurant on Naver, a Korean search and online-services company, can choose, in its own settings, whether to accept reservations and payments made with a foreign-issued card. The switch has been there since June 2025. Some merchants switch it off because overseas cards cost them more to process and are more often disputed. Naver's position is that the switch is about your card, not about you: a Korean resident paying with a card issued abroad is refused the same way, and a visitor with a Korean-issued card would go through.
That setting is one possible explanation, not a diagnosis of your attempt. Sold-out inventory, bank authentication, network errors and incomplete checkout can also interrupt a booking. Ask the platform or restaurant to confirm the actual status before retrying or making a replacement reservation.
A booking button does not guarantee payment acceptance
Read any warning or error shown during your booking attempt. A Reserve button alone cannot guarantee that your chosen payment method will be accepted. Passport verification proves identity; it does not override a merchant’s payment settings.
The setting's name, which reads as refusing foreign customers rather than foreign cards, drew public criticism in July 2026, and Naver said it was considering renaming it the global reservation and order setting (글로벌 예약·주문 설정). A change to the setting’s name does not necessarily change the merchant’s accepted payment methods.
