Be careful when using your credit card to check in at hotel

A recent report has highlighted how consumers need to be careful when using their credit cards to check into hotels, as even if the card is not being used to settle the hotel bill.

For instance, if you plan to use cash to pay for the room and any extras – a certain amount of money is still reserved by the hotel when your card is swiped, and this means that the money is no longer available for use until the final bill has been settled at the end of the hotel stay.

One customers told reporters how he checked into a hotel and was asked for his card for security purposes. He then decided to stay at another hotel, although he had not run up any charges at the first one. The card was then swiped at the second hotel. However, when the consumers went to make a purchase on his credit card he found that amounts for the cost of the hotel and incidental charges had been reserved by the two hotels, which meant that his credit limit was vastly reduced.

Consumers are being urged to bear in mind that most hotels will ask for a credit card when you check in to the hotel, and in most cases this card is used to tentatively reserve the cost of the room plus incidental charges. Although the money is not taken from the account, and gets freed up again once the final hotel bill has been settled at the end of the stay, the fact that it is reserved means that the credit limit on the card is reduced by that amount.

Sandra Quinn from APACS admitted that hotels and the like do need to be clearer with customers when it comes to charges such as these. She stated: "One of the things we've been working on a lot over the past four or five years, is transparency, and the more customers know about the charges they can be hit by, the more we can help them."

Tom Smith
17th September 2007

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