Originally Posted by
Jorgen
Just FYI though it is perfectly possible to travel and rent cars and book into hotels in the US using only a debit card, I did it myself for the first five years I was here. They will occasionally look askance at it, though, and insist on putting a "hold" of $500 or so on your card, but it's not too big a deal.
Hotel expenses are fine with debit card as long as you dont mind your REAL MONEY in the bank is temporary out of reach for X days when the hotels put a hold on it. $500 is peanut when comparing to some up market hotels "hold" upon check-in.
Rental car companies often put a larger hold when debit card is the form of payment. On top of that you do not enjoy the insurance coverage provided by the many credit cards having such feature.
Personally I wish everything and anything can be paid by a credit card - far less hassle and record keeping on my side versus using cash. I really like the CC statement with all the spending records in place so we know exactly where we have spent our money and on what. If it is cash I often lose track on them.
In our household we can go months with just a couple hundreds in the drawer as anything and everything that takes credit card, would be paid by CC.
