visa hotel question

metrovelvet

When a hotel 'holds' a certain amount on your visa, and then on departure charge you for the stay, is the charge a seperate transaction and the money still 'held' or is the money that they 'hold' released to pay for the hotel stay?

Sponge Bob

They often take nothing on booking and take it all on departure, the card is 'checked' but not charged on booking. If a hotel will not take Visa then run a mile, the receivers are close.

Dempo1

Sponge Bob wrote: »

They often take nothing on booking and take it all on departure, the card is 'checked' but not charged on booking. If a hotel will not take Visa then run a mile, the receivers are close.

LOL:D Sure sign the recievers are on their way when hotels/resturants stop accepting any card transactions. Lots of places in this predictiment. Had a meal in a restuarant in the midlands last night and was mortified when they would not accept laser/credit cards, we all had to dash to an atm. I checked this place out this morning and low and behold it had a creditors meeting last month.

Food and service was ****e by the way!

Sponge Bob

You can sure tell who is on the way out when the Visa machine is cut off or when they say they want ca$h not Visa

Dempo1

Sponge Bob wrote: »

You can sure tell who is on the way out when the Visa machine is cut off or when they say they want ca$h not Visa

YEP, I'm regretably in the business which is in ****e at the mo! i know of a large number of establishments not taking any credit card payments and i suspect the new year will see lots of closures.

Sponge Bob

Make sure you ask the restaurant BEFOREHAND, such as on booking, whether they take Visa, very very bad sign if the answer is no.

GerardKeating

metrovelvet wrote: »

When a hotel 'holds' a certain amount on your visa, and then on departure charge you for the stay, is the charge a seperate transaction and the money still 'held' or is the money that they 'hold' released to pay for the hotel stay?

Usually when you check in, they swipe your card and do a pre-auth, this places the shadow/hold on your account, often for a higher amount than the final bill. Your bank give the merchant an auth code for this transaction, but the transaction is not settled to your account.

When you check out, the hotel does a completion, inputs the final amount and sends the transaction to the bank for settlement, using the original auth code.

When this arrives at your bank, it (or at least their computers do) matches this against the preauth, and the held funds effectivilly pay for the transactions. If the final amount is less than the shadow, your effective balance goes up, if it's greater, your balance goes down a bit.

This can break down in at least two ways.

Your Bank might not match the completion with the original hold, so it think it's new transaction and takes the funds from your balance, possibly driving you over your limit, this will be resolved when the hold expires, usually after 7 days.

The other way one can have problem is the hotel (rather than going to the bother of looking up the pre-auth and completing it) just does a whole new transaction, this is less likely to drive you over your credit limit, since your bank would have to authorize the new transaction, but can cause problems if hold has reduced your available credit to the extend that your bank won't authorize this second unnecessary transaction.

dudara

Moved to Banking, Insurance & Pensions

dudara

BuffyBot

is the charge a seperate transaction and the money still 'held' or is the money that they 'hold' released to pay for the hotel stay?

The charge would technically be considered a separate transaction for the most part.