Originally Posted by
bulldoggolfer05
I agree though that sometimes the authorization holds can be a major pain for those who have lower credit limits or are working on a tight budget (which it seems does not describe 95% of the vocal FT'ers). Perhaps some other banks do this as well, but one thing you could do would be to set up a Bank of America checking account. While authorization holds do post to the account, Bank of America does not count them against your available balance, so it would not affect the amount of cash you have available to spend.
Off-topic:
Learned something (about BofA). Chase does count it against available balance. Back when I was in corp America I had a corp card so didn't really matter on the holds. Being self-employed for sev years w/ small clients (who don't always pay on time), I end up cutting it tight on available credit when doing multiple hotel stays - heck, sometimes even one stay when it's a long one w/ higher rates (such as hotels charge when there's a trade show).
It's something I'm thinking about with upcoming 16 day European vacation - multiple hotels in 16 days, so first you get the hold (at horrible exchange rate) of room+indidentals & then the actual charge. I've found int'l holds take 7 days to fall off, so it could get tight/problematic even if the final bills fall well within available credit.
On-topic:
Sounds like this RI has had problems w/ cash stays before (perhaps ala the keg party example before), hence the larger 'deposit' or 'hold'. I do agree, though, that not knowing of it up front makes it harder to plan accordingly when doing a lot of travel. I've gotten to the point when staying at new properties to call & find out what is their incidental hold amount. Good to know, especially on int'l stays when factoring in exchange rate. I don't do priceline though, so never had to deal w/ 'unknowns' in that respect.
Cheers.