Giving a Credit Card on hotel check-in

DeeGee75

Hi folk,

I have a hopefully quick question. I use a Revolut prepaid card for my overseas travel. I can't get many other cards, but I do have a Capital One credit card which sits untouched in my cupboard for major purchases (just for the protection).

I've loaded my Revolut with all my surplus money for this month so I can spend it on my trip to Estonia, and that's what I'm going to spend with.

I'll have to give a pre-authorisation at the hotel, though. If I do this using my Revolut card, that'll block a certain sum of money for a few days. Likewise if I use my bank account debit card.

So I'm thinking of using my credit card for this. However, there's a 2.5% transaction fee for non-sterling transactions with this card. What I'm wondering is, if I give the Credit Card, and they do a pre-auth on it, does this count as a transaction? Will I have to pay a fee on it, or when the pre-auth is cleared, will I get the whole of my money credited to my account?

I really can't use my debit card as other payments this month could bounce, and if I use the prepaid card it'll reduce the amount of money I can spend on the trip.

Voyager2002

An authorisation on a credit card is not a transaction, and so no fee would be charged. However, you have to be VERY careful that anything you spend gets paid for in some other way... hotels are very good at making paid services seem free, and then just charging them to the card.

DeeGee75

Thanks very much. I'll hopefully be able to check out properly on departure so I'll check my incidentals before I go.