Originally Posted by
CloudCoder
It's not about money. It's about the principal.
You buy something from Amazon. Checkout screen says 700 dollars. How would you feel if you had to pay 2000 dollars, and then you'd get 1300 dollars back in 5 days? And it was never mentioned at all, on the previous screens? And they only explanation is "because that's how we've always done it"?
It's also not based on magnitude. What if you want to purchase something for $1.00. Then you discover that, in reality, you must put up $1.02, and in 5 days you'll get a refund of the extra penny. One question: WHY?
Some hotel chains do not use credit holds, so we can't brush it off by saying that "all" hotels do it.
Also, we know that SOME Hyatts do not use credit holds.
If one can do it, why can't all?
I don't agree about the principal of the matter. A stay at a full service hotel isn't a straight up purchase of product. Quite the opposite, I don't understand why restaurants DON'T charge a 20% extra hold when they swipe your card prior to indicating tip amount. My guess, is that the restaurant passes the liability of not being able to process the extra tip amount to the server so they don't care.
It isn't a charge and refund either -- a hold is not part of your balance and isn't subject to any interest charges or calculations.