As I wrote, where I worked, all pre-arrival questions were handled by Reservations. That's also how it worked when I was working at Disney World. A Reservations manager would certainly know how the hotel handles credit authorization.

The purpose of that set-up is to allow the Front Desk representatives to help the people standing in front of them instead of fielding phone calls. But, it's not an industry-standard...which is why I mentioned the possibility that the call could be transferred to the Front Desk.