Starwood Preferred Guest - Credit Card - Amount Hold

First time flipflopper question here.....

I'll be flip-flopping hotels in the next 3 weeks (total of 14 flip-flop nights/stays). I'm concern that every night that I'm moving from one Starwood to another that each night the hotel(s) put in a big credit hold on my credit card and that the hold will not clear ASAP and soon my credit card might run out of funds.

My question is, do you know how much the hotel pre-charge/pre-authorize the guest's credit card? Is it double the estimated total cost of my stay or some other formula? And how fast are they releasing the excess credit hold after I check out? :confused:

Thanks.

If you think you are going to run into problems, check in with a CC that has plenty of available credit, and use the credit card of choice to settle all charges when you check out.

It's usually double the amount of the stay plus some. The release usually takes between 12 - 48 hours but it's not all *wood; some of it has to do with your credit card company. You may also want to make sure you call your credit card company ahead of time so that they don't shut down your card with thoughts of fraud.

Sometimes the hold stays on after a week. Depends on the hotel. When I do multiple switches between hotels, I sometimes use 2 credit cards. 1st for the "hold", 2nd for checkout.

Sometimes the hold stays on after a week. Depends on the hotel. When I do multiple switches between hotels, I sometimes use 2 credit cards. 1st for the "hold", 2nd for checkout.

Absolutely. Braindrain is correct on this one, and it's a good tactic to use.

Also,what I do sometimes is also call the property (or ask the platinum concierge to inquire on my behalf if it is too expensive to call) to ask what their pre-authorization hold is.

Even for reward stays, properties have different pre-auth holds (i.e. FP YVR has a $100 pre-auth hold on all reward stays, but the FP YYZ West has a $50 pre-auth hold on all reward stays).

The other tip I picked up here is that if you intend settling with a debit card, you should still check-in with a credit card so that the hold doesn't stop you accessing funds on your debit card after you have checked out.

It seems that the hotel policies differ depending on where you are. I've seen daily re-auths at some properties, and in Mexico, they will process it as an actual "charge" and hold the receipt until checkout, whereupon they will destroy it in front of you so that the charge never gets reconciled and then process a brand new charge upon checkout (Sheraton Monterrey). This practice could wreak havoc on limited available credit balances. However, keep in mind:

* A true "Authorization" will be held for only 7 Days on AmEx
* and 10 days for Visa/MC/Discover

Again, that's for Auth's only, and most hotels understand this (or their software program does) and the re-auth will occur automatically depending on stay length and spending at the spa!!!!!

The amount varies by hotel. Just call and ask. Most FD/PBX agents won't have the answer, so ask for a front desk manager or for accounting.

They should only hold 1 night, not the whole stay.

They should only hold 1 night, not the whole stay.

This has never happened to me. Even for the hotels I frequent a lot and they all know me by first name, the hold is still at just over 100% of the entire stay.

The LM in SIN held my card for a huge amount, definitely much more than what I was actually charged in the end. But they did not take money from the amount they blocked - they charged me at check out IN ADDITION to the hold. Was 4 days for the hold to drop off. Took me a while to work out what was going on when I saw that my credit limit dropped rather substantially.