Online Travel Booking and Bidding Agencies - ? about credit card holds on reservations

First, let me apologize if this isn't the correct forum. I wasn't sure where this would belong.
I am planning a surprise trip for DH to Florida this summer(was hoping for California but the MLB schedulers didn't cooperate). My question is this: When I book the hotels(online), I'll have to hold the reservations with a CC. I want to use our Citi PPE but since I don't want DH to know until June, will the reservation so up in any way on the CC? What about a hold? Can they hold the full price from my credit card and will that show up? I never had to worry about this kind of thing so I never paid attention. DH always pays the bills so he'd be kind of suspicious if I didn't let him see a bill or 2, especially since the card is for now our primary card.

I was thinking of getting a Hilton AMEX for myself to take care of the whole trip but I'd rather have the ThankYou points.
Another question-if I hold the reservation with one card, can I actually pay the bill with another or do they expect you to use the same card?

None of this would be a problem if it wasn't a secret :)


Thank you so much!

If you are booking on a third party site like Expedia or Orbitz you are usually charged for the entire reservation at the time of booking. If you reserve through a travel agent, directly with a hotel or through the hotel's website unless you reserve a nonrefundable fare you are just giving the card as a guarantee and they should not actually charge it. It is possible that near the cancellation deadline for the reservation the property might run the card for a credit hold equal to the cancellation or noshow penalty - for that reason it isn't a good idea to guarantee a hotel reservation with a debit card. You can pay at the hotel with a different card than that used to guarantee, although if they held credit against the card provided it might stay tied up for a few days but would not show up as an actual charge on your account.

Just read the cancellation and payment policies before you make the booking.

I'm sure you could call and explain the situation.

Agreed with catwings -- it will depend on the terms and conditions of the stay, e.g., some places won't put a hold prior to the stay, but will charge your card once the time of cancellation has elapsed.

The safest will be to hold using a different, personal card, then pay using whatever you want once you're there. If they accidentally double charge you, you can always challenge the charge on the wrong card.

No one really does it anymore, but you can probably leave a cash/check deposit.

Thanks for the replys. I think I'll get an new rewards card for myself. The real killer is the airfare. If I pay with the Citi PPE, I get points for miles flown. About 1,000 each way times 5(kids are coming too)-that's over 10,000 points I'd miss out on! I may have to give DH an early BD present so I can use the PPE to charge the airfare. I don't want to wait until the end of June to book for Aug. and miss out on JetBlue's direct flight from BUF to FLL.
Thanks again.