Hotels going cashless (i.e., refusing cash payment) & implications of refusing cash
 

Name one or more hotels where this is verifiably happening.

For paying for the room, I have no problem with this.

But I like to pay cash in the gift shop and the restaurant sometimes. Especially when in a foreign country, as I find my cards, even if I told the bank, work only intermittently or the debit system is different.

Some hotels now want a credit card or debit card rather than a cash security deposit (in case there's damage to the room, etc.) even if they will accept cash to settle the bill. I guess it gives them some recourse if the damages are much more extensive than what was imagined and it avoids having to send an employee to quickly check the room at check out.

A downside of this may be that hotel restaurants/bars could refuse to let guests charge their hotel restaurant/bar bills to the room and thereby more easily earn hotel points from hotel restaurant/bar charges. I have already seen this hit at some hotels in Europe when they went cashless.

Well I usually pay my hotel bill with a credit card and always have any other charges added to that bill including meals. So that means yet another criteria to check on before using a hotel. Probably something that only talking to a real live person at the hotel will find out for you. Yet another reason to not use third parasite booking companies.

Thanks for the heads up.

I wonder just how they intend to do business with people who only use cash? My Brother for example will not use credit cards for anything. i even think he is a dinosaur but that doesn't change the facts. He pays everything by cash or by cheque (bills). Hmmm, will the hotel take a cheque. :D

My understanding of the situation in the UK, at least, is that whilst one can refuse a transaction for any reason (e.g. I won’t sell you a coffee for cash), if a debt has been incurred (e.g. during a hotel stay), and the debtor offers legal tender (cash), then they cannot be pursued for the debt if you refuse to accept it.

I've always wondered about this. In the US - "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private" - how can a business refuse to accept it?

EDIT - OK, I guess Googling it isn't that hard

I'm thinking that the hotels mentioned above are a function of Scandinavia in general not using cash all that often. Hotels in other locales may not be able to get away from cash so easily, at least for now.

As for airlines, going cashless is likely more for practical reasons; it's kinda difficult to restock cash registers while at 35,000 feet.

I think it depends on the clientele of the particular hotel. Most poeple staying at a Hilton or Marriott probably have a credit/debit card. I imagine roadside motels and such get a lot of cash payments. There are middle class people who don't use cards, but they are probably too few to be worth the hotel's consideration. Perhaps they can be directed to get a money order from the closest CVS or 7-Eleven, or maybe the Flyertalker in line behind them would be happy to take the cash and use his/her credit card to pay the bill and earn some points :D

I assume these hotels will make you provide your card when you check in, not when you leave.

Many airlines do accept cash for onboard purchases. I don't see any practical reason they cannot. Maybe they occasionally cannot make the proper change, but that's usually easy to work around.

I thought you would have learned from your previous thread that these sites aren't necessarily bad. In a lot of cases they have clear advantages.

I would presume that a person who otherwise only deals in cash could purchase a prepaid card and use that? Never considered trying to pay at a hotel with one, but guess it could be done.

LOL, you write as if it is only poor people who don't use cards and as if staying at a Hilton or Marriott means you do have money. My Brother does not use cards because of a lack of funds, he does not use cards because of a belief that using them gives too many government agencies and just plain hackers, access to too much information about you. And in that regard he is of course correct. But if he wants to stay in a Hilton type mid-market hotel or an upmarket hotel, he still pays cash. I suppose he can just call his banker and have them transfer the money to the hotel's account.

I find your asssumptions about who uses cash and who doesn't amusing. Oh and by the way, he doesn't own a cellphone either. For much the same reasons. Big Brother is watching.

As for someone paying it on their card and earning points, well I suppose that would be a benefit to someone who doesn't have enough money to not care about points. Maybe my Brother would hand you cash and let you get points from the hotel. A form of charitable contribution on his part. LOL

Interesting that Germany still does 80% of all transactions in cash. I wonder why? Perhaps just a cultural thing. Or perhaps wiser than we realize.

When the power fails and the computers are down, our world today comes to a sudden and total halt. Even my Brother using cash can't pay for groceries at the supermarket if their computerized cash register won't add up the purchases and the drawer with the cash won't even open to make change. Imagine some of the younger people today trying to add up a column of a couple of dozen figures with a pencil and piece of paper. They actually couldn't do it in many cases. But my Brother can walk up to the check-out with a steak marked, '$16.50 on the plastic wrapped package, hand the clerk a $20 bill and say, 'keep the change.' :D

Try to imagine how long you could survive an extended power outage. Do a Google for 'Black Sky event' and see what you find. Makes for interesting reading. Even a weather induced event that last for more than a few days wreaks havoc. Computers have brought us many good things but they have also bought us potential unintended consequences as well. The more we move towards a 'cashless society' the more vulnerable we become to those consequences.

Did you wake up on the "I am God" side of the bed today?

btw, it's 74% of transactions. You're entitled to you own opinion but not your own facts.

In the US, the only flights that I've noticed that accept cash involve the smaller regional jets (CRJs, Embraers, etc); the mainline aircraft from the major airlines are card only in my experience. The distance theory may still come into play as well since the former tend to operate shorter routes compared to the latter, but it could also come down to other factors. Of course, it could very well be different elsewhere.

I don't have a problem with this, if it is made clear at the time of booking that cash is not accepted.

If a hotel decides to go cashless, it should continue to accept cash for all bookings that were made prior to announcing this.

The Quality Hotel View at Malmö Hyllie is also cashless. I booked this via a 3rd party site which indicated that cash was accepted as a payment method, so I got an unpleasant surprise when I noticed the sign by the front entrance stating that it is "cash-free", and the hotel's own website is clear on that fact too. The staff were sympathetic to the fact that there was an error on their listing on that 3rd party site, but the only thing that could be done was to complain to that booking site, since the hotel's computer system was no longer able to record that payment had been made in cash, and would not allow check-in until payment was made by card.

When I was in New Zealand recently, I noticed that all my hotels had a sign at their front desk, stating that credit card payments incur a 2% fee, and if one wished to avoid this fee, to change the payment method to cash, and indeed I paid for all my hotel stays in cash (as I don't have a New Zealand debit card, otherwise I would have preferred to use that, obviously).

I guess cheap motels and hostels will continue to accept cash for some time (though maybe not in Sweden), but actually I would think that Hiltons and Marriotts would be among the last hotels to stop accepting cash.


With regards to cash on board airlines, I notice that flight attendants of low-cost carriers are very efficient at handling cash and giving change, and airlines such as BA which decided to never accept cash from the start (ostensibly with one reason being to save time) can be extremely inefficient.

Most problems with change can be eliminated by pricing items sensibly.

Just as you and some others gave examples of where booking direct was the best option, there were also many, many examples of where that wasn't true. Shame you missed them.

Does he also wear a tin foil hat to stop the government from sending radio waves into his brain?

Because he sounds like some nutcase conspiracy theorist.

If he has a bank account, the government and hackers can already do what they need to do, but he clearly hasn't thought that through.

I've noticed that too. Maybe people don't buy much on short flights so it's not worthwhile to set up the machines?

Why would you think that?

I don't think card payments generally save time, especially for small amounts. It can take longer to run a credit card transaction than to accept a note and give change. My guess is that airlines don't want to bother storing and transporting cash.

Contactless cards aren't really a thing in the US though. Not to mention there are still a significant number of (smaller) businesses using dialup for their card processing.

Honestly, I'm surprised that businesses aren't doing more to discourage their use considering how much some dislike the whole concept.

This is all from personal experience, but I guess my impression is that higher-end hotels have a wider range of facilities available and one of them is dealing with cash. No Hiltons I've stayed at have balked at receiving cash, and at least in Europe, they all have those large boards full of coins to make change, and they all readily exchanged my coins into notes (and I have watched other guests exchange large notes into smaller notes or coins as required by the guest), whereas lower classes of hotels seem to be more awkward with cash transactions.

Well sometimes they need to enter the amount and pick up the card reader to hand over to the customer.

I visited some Christmas markets in Scandinavia a few months ago, and I observed that cash payments were far more frequent than one might be led to believe.

For my own transactions a lot of the time using cash was much faster than card would have been, as I always try to have the correct amount ready, unlike some slow people who always seemed to have coins of multiple currencies in their purses and had trouble adding up. So the merchant handed me the item, and I handed over the cash, done. Alternatively, they hand me the item, then they fumble around for the card reader, enter the amount, then I have to put my card in (while holding the item), type the PIN, then wait for a connection and a receipt.

Of course, contactless is great.

Another reason to pay with cash is to avoid dynamic currency conversion and/or foreign transaction fees. Normally you can pay with a credit card that doesn't have such practices, but it can be a problem if the hotel or other merchannt in a foreign country doesn't accept all major credit cards.

Until recently, In Argentina, one got better foreign exchange rates for cash, so it made sense to avoid using credit cards, even for major expenditures such as hotel bills. Everyone seemed to be doing this.

Somewhat similarly, during periods of rapid changes in foreign exchange rates (such as very severe inflation in the destination country), it can make sense to avoid using credit cards that will be eventually billed in your home currency. Posting delays can be expensive in asuch cases.

I've always found cash acceptance interesting. I've found it doesn't necessarily always correlate to the caliber of hotel here in the US, including deposit policies.

I've been to Full-Service Marriott properties that will take cash with a reasonable incidental deposit (in cash), but yet seen RIs that won't take cash at all (or they'll take cash for payment, but still want a CC to hold room + incidentals on)

I've also been to low-end properties that won't take cash, or require an absurd (Read: $300) deposit for those paying cash.

The only chain I've found to consistently accept cash (with no insane incidental deposit) is, unsurprisingly, Motel 6.

Until they trash the room and your credit card is stuck footing the repair bill/loss of revenue days/whatever other charge the hotel can get away with charging

I love the conspiracy/post-apocalyptic vibe of this thread. :D

Forget about paying in cash: I want my hotel brand to accept ammo, whiskey, and fresh game as payment.

But still give me hotel points.

I think the move toward cashless society is a move toward eventual acceptance of the Mark of the Beast (Revelation 13:16-18; Revelation 14:9-11)

Seriously. I'm surprised there aren't more complaints in this thread about hotels not accepting gold bullion or gemstones either.

Diamonds are a girl;'s best friend.

In a forum full of frequent flyer/guest types, that sounds like flirting.

The majority of Nordic Choice hotels are card-only/cashless.

When even some airline ticketing locations in the US are going cashless, it’s probably only a matter of time until this no-cash approach spreads to US hotels too.

Refusing cash is a good way to keep the riff raff out. People who don't have credit cards or even debit cards are higher risk people.

I remember being in a terrible hotel years ago. It was the "Tulsa Select" hotel in Tulsa. They had a sign at the front desk: "Cash payments not accepted from Tulsa residents".

The reason is that prostitutes, drug dealers, junkies and criminals in general use cash only. By requiring them to use a CC or debit card, you are requiring them to leave a record of their identity and of their stay. This means the hotel won't turn as easily into a seedy base of operations for low-lifes.

Can you back that statement up with a source of some sort?