The hold is also for the hotel's protection for other unforeseen damages or expenses. A few that come to mind:
- Violation of the hotel's No Smoking policy.
- Occupant "chooses" a late check-out without permission from the hotel.
- Damages to hotel room. (I know someone who was charged for breaking the headboard in a hotel. I was not there.
)
I'm sure that many hotel employees don't have a good understanding about the impact of credit card authorizations. If there's an issue, let the front desk know.
Standards? Totally on the hotel level, I suspect. And I suspect that many of them fail to use a dependable formula to decide what it should be for each reservation/rate.