All transactions start as pending charges, and merchants have 7-10 days to settle the transactions and collect the funds (it is up to 16 days for car rentals and hotel reservations). If they don't settle the charge, the pending transaction expires and the funds are returned to your account.
Some merchants settle charges upon shipping, so a delay in shipping the product may be the reason why the original pending transaction expired. If the merchant confirms your order is still in process, then we recommend keeping this amount in your KOHO account, as the merchant will process a force-posted settlement (meaning they will come back to collect the funds) when the product ships.
If you're waiting on a pending transaction to expire, once again the timeframe is up to 7-10 days for regular purchases, and up to 16 days for hotels, Airbnbs, and car rentals.
We are unfortunately unable to manually expire transactions from our side or expedite this process.
If you've received a notification that a transaction has expired but don't see any change to your account balance, this actually means everything is working exactly as it should. This is called a reverse authorization expiry - let us walk you through what happened:
Initial pending charge: A merchant processed a pending transaction that temporarily held funds in your account
Merchant processed a reversal: The merchant then issued a reversal (refund) for the same amount - often because they cancelled the transaction or corrected an error
Clean slate: After the standard 3-30 day period, both transactions naturally expired, leaving your account exactly where it started
Why this might seem puzzling at first:
You received an expiry notification but didn't see money added back to your account
The transactions may no longer appear in your transaction feed since they've completed their lifecycle
Your account balance remained steady throughout the entire process
The great news about what happened:
Here's the reassuring math behind it:
Temporary holds: Original pending charge + Reversal processing = -$X + -$X
Everything resolved: Expiry of pending charge + Expiry of reversal = +$X + +$X
Perfect balance: $0 impact on your account - you're exactly where you should be!
What this means for you:
The expiry notification you received was simply letting you know that the process completed successfully. The system worked perfectly - funds were temporarily held, then properly released, resulting in no permanent charge to your account. These completed transactions won't clutter your feed since they've served their purpose and are no longer active.
You can check your monthly statements at the first of each month to get a clear view of settled transactions.
We're always working to make these processes even clearer and more transparent for our users, because we want your banking experience to be as smooth and understandable as possible!