CloudCoder

Hyatt usually places a credit card hold for the entire room rate at check-in. The hold is padded by an additional amount to cover "incidentals".

In the USA, typically HP holds $30 per stay and HR holds $75 per stay for incidentals. This can vary. HR MSP Bloomington holds $125 per stay, which is sometimes more than the room costs.

My main gripe about credit card holds is that they go on within nanoseconds but they go off after several days. Thus you need enough credit to pay for the room More Than Twice. Consider a one-night stay at $150 For a couple of days after checkout, your credit limit is hit for:

1. The expected room rate (held at checkin)
2. The "incidentals" (also held at checkin) ... which can be more than the room rate
3. The actual hotel bill (charged at checkout)

This post is not about money! It's about the fact that I agreed to pay Hyatt for a room, yet for a few days after checkout I'm actually hit for the room THREE times. In my own business, I'd never get away with charging a customer three times. Why should Hyatt charge me three times?

IME there are many hotel chains which do NOT place credit card holds.

I was pleasantly surprised during a recent stay at HP London Heathrow Hayes. They did not place ANY credit hold at checkin. They didn't even want to see the card at checkin. They simply charged the final bill to the credit card, after checkout. Why can't other Hyatt properties do this?

Aventine

I think it depends on the property for credit holds.

Java Titan

Don't care that at all. I think you should try to increase credit limit on your cards.

antonius66

This is a completely nonsensical response to a legitimate issue. Discard the arrogance and understand that for some people, the amount of extra credit card hold can be highly unreasonable. During a stay in Vienna, I commented to my wife about the absurd hold that the PH Vienna places, as it is SEVERAL hundred dollars for a multi night stay. For some people, that is a serious issue and not everyone has 500 or 1000 extra to have blocked on their cards...and please don't give me the elitist "don't stay at nice hotels if you can't afford to have $1000 blocked on your card" BS. The holds are absurd in some places for sure.

RTW1

Nothing elitist about it.... simply the reality.

They trust you to stay in an expensive room and charge generous amounts to your room/account, a credit card hold is the way to guarantee payment. A generous hold avoids lots of problems at checkout.

And unless the FD doesn't know what they are doing the hold is cancelled the moment you pay the final bill.

MarkOK

I don't have any problems or qualms about credit card holds from Hyatt. These are holds - not charges -- you don't get CHARGED three times, you get charged just once when you check out. And with other cards (including Chase cards) where I have had balances close to the credit limit in the past (I like to take full advantage of 0% intro interest rates from time to time), I found that those cards always would allow for holds of well over my remaining credit limit and my card would get rejected if my balance was actually over the credit limit (well, when I tried this, most of my cards didn't reject until I was at least a few grand over the 'credit limit', they would just up my minimum payment the few grand). Anyways, the holds and credit limits didn't matter, but then again, I do have great credit (though not always excellent -- Fico penalizes my score when I carry large balances close to the limit!).

I found any other hotel worth a stay places holds as well. And I have often bought more bar drinks and room service than the hold that Hyatt places. So, I feel like the standard practice is justifiable.

Do you complain that gas stations hold $100 too? My Prius fills up for 20 bucks, but I get a hold for 5 times that amount every time I fill up.

The only holds I have found egregious in life are what some landlords charge tenents (i.e. last month rent and a few thousand) because, back when I moved and rented often in my younger years, I found that those landlords that did that did so with the explicit purpose of having the upper hand at the end of the lease. If you don't agree that you caused $X,XXX in damages, it the onus became on you, the renter, to sue them. I once left a place I rented for a year in Hawaii impeccable and the landlord decided to try to use my thousands in deposit money in made up damages. I did my due diligence and I have disposable income, so I was able to send a letter from a law firm and pictures which forced her to concede, but how many thousands has that woman reaped from others with lesser means? The holds Hyatt places is a laughable non-transgression in comparison.

CloudCoder

Is it reasonable for Globalists and first-time guests to be charged the same "generous" hold, to avoid problems at checkout?

Is the hold really a "security" deposit, as insurance against someone who trashes the room? 75 bucks covers it? I can't remember a front desk agent ever saying that the hold is for security. It's always for "incidentals". It harkens back to the days when credit card transactions were more cumbersome. Nowadays, the hotel can very easily and quickly charge each transaction, no matter how small, right at the point of sale. "Incidentals" are a much smaller factor today than in the past.I wish that were true! You can look at your credit card account (on your phone) while you check in. Within seconds, the hold shows up on your account. After you check out, the hold sometimes disappears by the next morning (but your available credit is still impacted). It usually takes two days for the available credit to bounce back. But on a bank holiday weekend, you could be looking an "immediate" hold release which actually takes 5 calendar days.

I'm sure that many other hotels do not use credit holds. I usually don't offer them my credit card anyway, except at checkout. If some other hotel wants to swipe my card for "incidentals", I cheerfully tell them that there won't be any incidentals. I invite them to turn off the signal to my TV, ban me from the bar, block me from their crappy restaurant, yank the phone out of my room, etc ... because I'm not gonna use any of their "incidentals".

This is not about money and it's not about Bad Credit. It's about the fact that I contracted to pay Hyatt "X" amount for a hotel room. In order to do that, I must pony up more than 2X. Yes, the excess gets refunded eventually. When I make an agreement with a customer for "X amount, go ahead and guess how much they pay? Hint: "X" amount. Not one cent more, not one cent less. Why does Hyatt get to charge me 3x and then eventually refund the overpayment?

CloudCoder

That may have been true in the past. But nowadays, the kind of credit hold (that Hyatt uses) reduces the available credit immediately.

As recently as 12 months ago, you're right, it seems that a lot of gas stations put a hold on your card. Amex was always the highest. Many gas stations nowadays charge just the sale amount (and NO credit hold). The gasoline industry changes. Perhaps it's time for the hotel industry to change.

Kacee

Absurd? Was there last weekend, they put on a hold that was 50 Euro over the cash portion of my P+C rate, then took another authorization when I started charging stuff (meals and spa) to my room. Totally reasonable IMO.

Agreed.

There's something of a disconnect staying at a 5* property and not being able to handle a $1-2k hold on your credit card.

It can still take several days to drop. Up to 10 days if the front desk doesn't cancel it when you check-out.

Java Titan

I bet you went there with free night certificate. I just looked cash price for the hotel is over 700 euro per night. For multiple nights stay there, is $1000 really that much? That's just a little over one night price!!!

RTW1

That's operator error.... the right way is to make the charge against the pre-authorisation so that your hold is cancelled at the same time (and you don't need the extra credit).

CloudCoder

It's not about money. It's about the principal.

You buy something from Amazon. Checkout screen says 700 dollars. How would you feel if you had to pay 2000 dollars, and then you'd get 1300 dollars back in 5 days? And it was never mentioned at all, on the previous screens? And they only explanation is "because that's how we've always done it"?

It's also not based on magnitude. What if you want to purchase something for $1.00. Then you discover that, in reality, you must put up $1.01, and in 5 days you'll get a refund of the extra penny. One question: WHY?

Some hotel chains do not use credit holds, so we can't brush it off by saying that "all" hotels do it.

Also, we know that SOME Hyatts do not use credit holds.

If one can do it, why can't all?

MarkOK

Doesn't the 'contract' also imply a credit card hold?

And again, you aren't PAYING anything until you are charged. The hold is not a payment, and removing the hold isn't a refund. The hold is just the hotels way of making sure that if you bail in the middle of the night, that your credit card will 'work' for whatever expenses you incurred. You can call them out for being 'untrusting' - I don't blame them though as the hospitality industry does have to deal with unscrupulous behavior (and not just people escaping their room service bill, but people using the room for illegal activities, etc). And, sure, they could just charge incidentals as they occur with a credit card on file, but I for one prefer being able to eat at the restaurant (many in Hyatts are quite good), drink at the bar, etc and just checking out with 1 itemized bill at checkout vs having to deal with a payment approval each time; it's more hospitable to me.

And to emphasize that a hold isn't a charge -- I once called the fraud department on one of my cards after seeing a hold of $2K for some airline tickets I didn't buy, and though they were happy to cancel my credit card number and stop transactions, they couldn't open up an official 'fraud case' until an actual charge occurred, because the hold is -not- a charge.

And again, a 'hold' against my credit limit just doesn't mean anything to me. If you are close to the credit limit and a hold is impacting your plans, you really should ask for a higher credit limit to accommodate holds and stop worrying about it. The holds aren't charges against you and aren't part of your cc balance, all they do is shift your available credit for the time they are on there. Hyatt isn't holding your money or anything, they are just getting an assurance of a working credit card. (And lets talk about airlines for that matter. American Airlines IS absolutely charging me and getting my money months before I get the actual service from them. There is more to be upset about that principal than a a couple day credit card hold.).

MarkOK

I don't agree about the principal of the matter. A stay at a full service hotel isn't a straight up purchase of product. Quite the opposite, I don't understand why restaurants DON'T charge a 20% extra hold when they swipe your card prior to indicating tip amount. My guess, is that the restaurant passes the liability of not being able to process the extra tip amount to the server so they don't care.

It isn't a charge and refund either -- a hold is not part of your balance and isn't subject to any interest charges or calculations.

Kacee

Sorry, it's clearly about the money for some of you. Having a hold placed on some portion of the credit line is only an issue if you have an insufficient credit line. It causes no financial harm whatever.

Moreover, the property is just protecting itself against guests who skip. If you think this doesn't happen with some frequency, you're living in fantasyland.

IME, Hyatt is very lenient to Globalists with what is really a minimal hold, typically $50 over the expected charge for room and tax.