Credit Card Hold at Universal Hotels

[LynnB]

Can anyone who has stayed at one of the Universal hotels recently confirm if you can still decline charging privileges at check in to avoid the the daily charges credit card hold?

 

[MIChessGuy]

I just completed a one-week stay at Dockside. Upon check-in at the hotel, a hold of $50 was applied for the entire stay. The 'charging privileges' was never mentioned at all. Also I made a point not to do any kind of express check-in; whether that made any difference, I don't know.

 

[Perdita&Pongo]

We stayed at Helios and they put a $1,000.00 hold (not a typo), only for us to go into Epic and hotel charging privileges were declined on more than one occasion. Checked with the front desk the next morning and whoever did it set it up wrong. It was fixed and we could charge to the room thereafter.

 

[Minnie1222]

We also stayed at Helios two weeks ago and there was an "incidental hold" of $200/night. We had two rooms for 5 nights so $2000 were charged at check-in.

You can block the charging privileges to prevent your kids from buying 500 wands, but can you decline the incidental hold? I always thought this was a way for the hotel to protect themselves.

 

[tony67]

We stayed at Helios and they put a $1,000.00 hold (not a typo), only for us to go into Epic and hotel charging privileges were declined on more than one occasion. Checked with the front desk the next morning and whoever did it set it up wrong. It was fixed and we could charge to the room thereafter.

I don't get it - this has been an issue with Universal since the late 90s.
I gave up on charging to the room a long time ago.
It's always set up wrong - maybe they need to address that or something????

The usually ask me how much I want to be able to charge per day and I turn it down.

 

[eticketplease]

can you decline the incidental hold? I always thought this was a way for the hotel to protect themselves.

Agreed this seems to be a standard practice across the hospitality industry not just at resorts to have a hold placed on your card

 

[Perdita&Pongo]

We also stayed at Helios two weeks ago and there was an "incidental hold" of $200/night. We had two rooms for 5 nights so $2000 were charged at check-in.

You can block the charging privileges to prevent your kids from buying 500 wands, but can you decline the incidental hold? I always thought this was a way for the hotel to protect themselves.

We were also there 5 nights, so $200/nt makes sense. Minnie - I think our trips overlapped: we were there 8/17-22 park view club level (we upgraded to club at check in).

We wanted to charge back to the room as we have a credit card that gives 3% cash back on hotels, so everything bought in the parks, souvies, food would get the 3%. Heck, we used half the $1,000 just on our dinner for four adults in Bar Helios.

 

[Minnie1222]

We were also there 5 nights, so $200/nt makes sense. Minnie - I think our trips overlapped: we were there 8/17-22 park view club level (we upgraded to club at check in).

We were there 08/12-17 pool view. We had a really lovely time.