Originally Posted by
CloudCoder
. 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?
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.).