reserving hotel rooms with my credit card

Brie

OK so I need to reserve a number of hotel rooms for relatives staying near our family home in Canada.  Looking at 5 rooms for about 4 nights and maybe another 5 for 2 nights.  4 nights would cost about £600 each and 2 nights about £350.  So total cost of the reservations may come to over £5k.  I have no intention of paying for these - the actual payment will be taken at the time when people show up and any reservations i know won't be needed will be cancelled at least a week ahead of time.

So here's the problem.....I have 1 CC only that has no fees being charged when used outside the UK.  And the credit available on that is £3500 so less than the total reservation amount.  

Does the reservation (done via Trivago or Expedia) use the available credit on my card?  

Yes I have other CCs available but am reluctant to use them.  And yes there is family in Canada that could be doing this instead of me but I keep getting pulled in to doing things due to them flapping about in a confused manner.

Wondering too how easy it will be to cancel anything.  If I'm in Canada at the time of needing to cancel I'm not sure how easy it will be to get on to the relevant system and get through whatever security they use.  (OTP etc)

elsien

When I have reserved places through Expedia or booking.com  yes they do take the payment at the time of the reservation. Then refund it when you cancel.
So it looks like Canadian people are gonna have to stop running around like headless chickens if they actually want somewhere to stay. 

lr1277

I don’t know if this helps but I have booked a couple of stays in the UK at Hilton properties on the Hilton website.
Because I booked the most flexible stay (ie cancellation allowed till 24 hours before check in), no money was taken from my card. I suspect if I had booked a room I couldn’t cancel, then Hilton would have taken the money at the time of booking.
Obviously rooms with cancellation rights are more expensive than rooms without.
I don’t know if my experience applies to international stays nor whether a booking site would follow the same procedure.
i suppose the situation also depends upon how price sensitive are your family? Would they book fixed price or flexible stays for themselves?
One more option you have is ringing the hotel and explaining your situation. You could then make the booking directly with the hotel if the answers are agreeable.

Gandalf644

Brie said:

OK so I need to reserve a number of hotel rooms for relatives staying near our family home in Canada.  Looking at 5 rooms for about 4 nights and maybe another 5 for 2 nights.  4 nights would cost about £600 each and 2 nights about £350.  So total cost of the reservations may come to over £5k.  I have no intention of paying for these - the actual payment will be taken at the time when people show up and any reservations i know won't be needed will be cancelled at least a week ahead of time.

So here's the problem.....I have 1 CC only that has no fees being charged when used outside the UK.  And the credit available on that is £3500 so less than the total reservation amount.  

Does the reservation (done via Trivago or Expedia) use the available credit on my card?  

Yes I have other CCs available but am reluctant to use them.  And yes there is family in Canada that could be doing this instead of me but I keep getting pulled in to doing things due to them flapping about in a confused manner.

Wondering too how easy it will be to cancel anything.  If I'm in Canada at the time of needing to cancel I'm not sure how easy it will be to get on to the relevant system and get through whatever security they use.  (OTP etc)

 

I have reserved a few hotel rooms in the USA for my forthcoming trip (as I have done many times in the recent past few years).

I booked them direct with the providers – ie using hilton.com, ihg.com, marriott.com etc (I am a member of all of their loyalty points thing, so collect the points on my stays).

I made the bookings as cancellable ones (which do cost slightly more than pay in advance non-cancellable bookings) incase anything should happen in advance.

Although reserved on my UK credit card (with no overseas fees), nothing has been taken from my card by Hilton or ihg etc. 

What normally happens is that my card is charged on check out from the hotels.

Try doing a dummy cancelable reservation and see what happens – you can always cancel it straight away.

Hope this helps.

Brie

Was looking again at reserving and discovered that there's a group booking service available so I'm waiting for a quote from them.  

Belenus

Brie said:

Was looking again at reserving and discovered that there's a group booking service available so I'm waiting for a quote from them.  

Bear in mind that may break the debtor-creditor-supplier link and means that you may not qualify for Section 75 protection should that be required.

born_again

Belenus said:

Brie said:

Was looking again at reserving and discovered that there's a group booking service available so I'm waiting for a quote from them.  

Bear in mind that may break the debtor-creditor-supplier link and means that you may not qualify for Section 75 protection should that be required.

May not apply anyway if account holder is not going.

Would be far better for each person to book their own.

Not uncommon for payment still being taken on reservation card & card presented to pay. As back office team can not match up card used for booking to card used to pay bill.

DullGreyGuy

born_again said:

Not uncommon for payment still being taken on reservation card & card presented to pay. As back office team can not match up card used for booking to card used to pay bill.

At point of booking I know that some do an authorisation request to check the card has enough limit to cover a no show but never heard of them actually taking payment on a non-advance booking. 

When you check in they may ask if you want to use the card on file or switch it to another for extras/charges to the room. Similarly when checking out which card you want to use. Sure there may be confusion if you just drop the keycard off rather than speaking to reception but have never personally had a case where I have spoken to them and back office have charged the wrong card.

born_again

DullGreyGuy said:

born_again said:

Not uncommon for payment still being taken on reservation card & card presented to pay. As back office team can not match up card used for booking to card used to pay bill.

At point of booking I know that some do an authorisation request to check the card has enough limit to cover a no show but never heard of them actually taking payment on a non-advance booking. 

When you check in they may ask if you want to use the card on file or switch it to another for extras/charges to the room. Similarly when checking out which card you want to use. Sure there may be confusion if you just drop the keycard off rather than speaking to reception but have never personally had a case where I have spoken to them and back office have charged the wrong card.

It's not payment taken at time. Pre auth will be done at time of booking. It is hotel will take the payment from the reservation card, as back room staff can not tally a payment on the card used for booking with the reservation card used. 

If the people going have their own CC, then it is far better for them to book their own rooms. As they will then have their own cover in case of problems.
Unlike if @Brie books this for them. Even if they are going as well. If they are not going. Then they really need to let the Candians deals with this.

DullGreyGuy

born_again said:
 It is hotel will take the payment from the reservation card, as back room staff can not tally a payment on the card used for booking with the reservation card used. 

If the people going have their own CC, then it is far better for them to book their own rooms. As they will then have their own cover in case of problems.
Unlike if @Brie books this for them. Even if they are going as well. If they are not going. Then they really need to let the Candians deals with this.

All I can say is we clearly stay in different places as I've frequently changed card from booking to paying at hotels and never had a problem with them charging the wrong one. Several clients have had a booking agent that they've requested I use that use "their own" card for making a reservation but I switch it to my own card for payment on checkout. 

Client gets the rate and volume discounting via their agent, I get my reward points for spending on my own card, so everyone is happy. Never had a case of the client being charged.

Do however agree that unless you are willing to foot the whole bill than people booking themselves is generally better subject to group booking discounts. 

Brie

I have set everything up as a group booking and will be issued with a link I can then send out to the various Canucks.  We can each pay for our own and get a group discount rate.  Doing it this way gave us about 10% off and we all get suites rather than rooms which makes it even nicer.  And there's a pool.  And they'll give us discount vouchers for any meals.  There's a little less leeway of when thing have to be paid (60 days for at least half) but that's fine by me - if my bros can't organise themselves (unlikely in some cases) well that's their hard cheese.