When a Hotel puts $$$ on hold from your Debt Card

[JanetRose]

do you have access to that $$$ before you check out of the hotel?

 

[BelleWDW]

I dont think so


This is why DH and I ALWays put Hotels on a credit card and pay off after our trips

 

[aprilgail2]

No and sometimes it takes up to a week to have access to that money again!! I found that out the hard way LOL...now I NEVER leave a debit card for the hold, even if I pay with a debit I give them a credit card to put down for the security part!

 

[barkley]

available for what? some hotels (like disney's) do a hold so you can charge items to the room account (park purchases, meals, room/spa services) so the amount of the hold is still available to you but just for those purposes- but if it ate up all your credit limit you would'nt be able to still go out and do an atm withdrawl or charge at a non hotel affiliated buisness. you have to wait until the hotel releases the hold.

you have to be careful though when hotels do holds-if they are'nt timely in running their accounts or don't do it in the right order it can cause problems and overlimit fees with your debit card. we had this problem with a couple of different disney resorts-they did'nt release the hold on the same pass as the one they posted the charges to the debit card on so when we went to settle the bill they were telling us our debit card had been declined so i end up on the desk phone talking to the bank who says the reason i'm over my limit is b/c disney has a hold for more than the amount of the charges, but they are posting the charges as well. bank spent quite a while with the desk staff trying to explain to them that they had to do the release of the hold and the charges on the same pass to free up that held money to cover the charges. finaly got it straightened out but then when we got the statement we got hit with an over-limit fee i called the bank, they told me to call disney who ended up crediting the cost of the fee to our card.

 

[Tiggerlover91]

do you have access to that $$$ before you check out of the hotel?

No you don't. DH, DS, and I came back from Stone Mountain a couple of weeks ago. When I checked in, they swiped my card and $211 was put on it. We checked out a day early and when I came home, it still said $211. However a day later the correct charge came through for $144.

 

[Ohiodislover]

It sort of depends on your bank. Mine takes off any authorizations after 48 hours if the actual charge hasn't been done. It gets tricky over the weekend though. Say I check in on Friday, then that money isn't available till Tuesday.

We do the same as the poster above. Put a credit card on file for the auth, and then pay w/ a debit card at checkout.

 

[Kimberle]

I work with cr/debit cards for a living. By law, banks are allowed to "hold" these "holds" for 10 days. And believe me, they do! Eventhough your vendor has corrected your account, it may not be posted for up to 10 days. It really depends on *your* bank. Some banks are very good at posting the credits, some are not.

I don't use debit cards for anything (except small purchases at Costco). I put everything on a credit card and pay it in full every month.

If you don't "trust" yourself, set your card up w/ online payments. As soon as your charge is posted, do a transfer to pay it. Don't wait until the end of the month. You'll have the protection a credit card offers, yet will carry no balance.

 

[kim929]

With Bank of America, a hotel hold is only for 24 hrs, or when the acct goes thru overnight processing. We then wait til the hotel puts thru the actual charges. Alot of people get confused with this as they see the hold when they look at their acct, but don't realize it was never actually charged to the acct so when the charge does come thru they think they have been charged twice. Boa, also will look at an acct and release a hold if they see the actual charge coming thru from the merchant. (you do have to call) say you get gas, a hold of 75.00 is put on the acct, but you only spent 25.00 we will look at that transaction and if we can see the purchase was made for the same time and place we will release the 75.00 hold so you dont' have a problem.
Everytime I go to Disney, I give them my debit card for room charges on my ktw. They don't charge your acct until you reach 500.00, this way you don't run in to the problem of all little charges, and holds on my acct, especially at a restarurant where they will run an authorization then the actual charge.

 

[Traveliz]

available for what? some hotels (like disney's) do a hold so you can charge items to the room account (park purchases, meals, room/spa services) so the amount of the hold is still available to you but just for those purposes- but if it ate up all your credit limit you would'nt be able to still go out and do an atm withdrawl or charge at a non hotel affiliated buisness. you have to wait until the hotel releases the hold.
you have to be careful though when hotels do holds-if they are'nt timely in running their accounts or don't do it in the right order it can cause problems and overlimit fees with your debit card. we had this problem with a couple of different disney resorts-they did'nt release the hold on the same pass as the one they posted the charges to the debit card on so when we went to settle the bill they were telling us our debit card had been declined so i end up on the desk phone talking to the bank who says the reason i'm over my limit is b/c disney has a hold for more than the amount of the charges, but they are posting the charges as well. bank spent quite a while with the desk staff trying to explain to them that they had to do the release of the hold and the charges on the same pass to free up that held money to cover the charges. finaly got it straightened out but then when we got the statement we got hit with an over-limit fee i called the bank, they told me to call disney who ended up crediting the cost of the fee to our card.

Disney's hotels do not put a hold on your cards - they run the card to see if it is valid and then extend you the credit line of the hotel (value, mod, deluxe). Once you charge that much back they charge your card.

It is feasible you put down a card that has less credit available than what the hotel limit allows. You just have to keep track then.

Liz

 

[tasha99]

Last summer Hojo's in Anaheim ran my debit, said it didn't work, then ran it again. Well, it worked both times and I was broke at Disneyland for 2 days waiting for the authorization to fall off! Sucked, but we survived.