You leave for a trip and think you have enough credit to put all your expenses on your credit card. Or, perhaps you're using a gift card to pay part of your travel expense. Again, you think you have plenty of money available on that card and until the hotel clerk tells you your card has been rejected. Do you have another card you can use? How can that be?

The answer is that car rental agencies and hotels often put a hold against your credit card when you make your reservation or when you get to the check-in counter. The hold sets aside part of your available credit to be used for the service you are planning to purchase. Although you aren't actually billed for the amount of the hold until you use the service and give your okay to bill the fees to your credit card, the hold prevents you from using that amount of credit for any other purpose for a period of time unless the company placing the hold on your account releases it. So far so good, right?

Well, not always. Sometimes when you return the car or check out of your hotel room, instead of capturing the money the rental agency or hotel has already had held aside to pay your bill, they put through a totally new charge because the clerk on duty doesn't know how to do anything else. Eventually the original hold against the card will go away, but "eventually" can be a couple of weeks, especially if the hold was placed against a gift card.

To avoid a big problem and time-wasting confrontation when traveling, keep a spare credit card and or extra cash with you for emergencies.

Get More Travel Tips Here

Comments