Playbook, hotel
The hold on the card at check in is not a charge
Two sums get called a deposit at a hotel and neither of them is the room rate. One is the amount the front desk holds against a card at check in for incidentals, which appears on a banking app as a pending line and looks exactly like a payment to anybody who has not worked a desk. The other is what happens when a room is held all night and nobody walks through the door, and that is not one rule but one per rate plan.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for deposits and no-show fees holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- A pre authorisation is a hold rather than a payment, and the hotel releases it at checkout while the guest's own bank decides how long the pending line stays visible. The hotel is blamed for a delay it has no control over, which makes the published wording matter more than the amount.
- There is no single no show charge. The advance purchase rate was taken in full at booking so nothing further happens, the flexible rate is charged for the first night after a stated hour, and a company billed booking goes to the account instead of a card.
- Rooms are held to a guaranteed arrival hour, so a guest who has not told the desk they are arriving late is a different problem from a guest who never intended to come, and the second one is often really the first.
- Anything that is not a bedroom carries a commercial deposit instead: a room block, a function space or an event has a percentage, a schedule and a forfeit position that behave nothing like a hold for a minibar.
How it arrives
- why is there a hold on my card from the hotel
- when does the pre auth come off
- will we be charged if we dont turn up
- do you need a card at check in if ive already paid
- how much do you hold for incidentals
- what happens if we get there after midnight
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The incidentals hold, as an amount and a mechanism | How much is held, whether it is per night or per stay, whether debit cards are treated differently, whether cash is accepted at the desk instead, and the plain statement that the release is instructed at checkout while the timing of it belongs to the guest's bank. Both halves are needed or the desk gets chased. |
|---|---|
| No show wording written once per rate plan | Four short paragraphs, named exactly as the booking page names the rates: what happens to a flexible booking, an advance purchase booking, a company billed booking and one made through an agent when the room is not occupied. Merging them produces a charge the guest never agreed to or a refund the hotel never owed. |
| The guaranteed arrival hour and what follows it | The hour past which an unguaranteed room may be released, whether the desk needs telling about a late arrival and how a guest tells you. Most no shows that turn into arguments were late arrivals nobody was told about, and this paragraph is what converts them back. |
| Deposits taken for anything that is not a bedroom | Room blocks, function space and events: the percentage, when each instalment falls due, what is refundable and against what notice. Keep it as its own document, because the language is commercial and it must never be quoted at somebody asking about a hold for the minibar. |
The reply
Two different things get called a deposit here. At check in the desk takes a pre authorisation on your card for incidentals, which is a hold rather than a payment: the amount is on the rates page, and it is released at checkout, though how quickly the pending line clears is decided by your own bank rather than by us [1]. Separately, if a room is held and nobody arrives, what is charged depends on the rate. An advance purchase booking was already paid in full, while a flexible booking carries a first night charge after the guaranteed arrival hour [2]. I cannot see a card, a hold or a booking, so if a specific amount has appeared on your statement, leave your name, the email on the booking and your arrival date and the desk will look at the folio.
It separates the two sums in the first sentence, because almost every message on this subject is that confusion. The bank is named as the source of the delay, which is true and which stops the desk being chased for something it has already instructed. The no show answer gives the rates rather than a figure, since one number here is wrong for three quarters of the bookings it would be quoted at.
Where it stops
The trigger. The guest names an amount that has appeared on a statement, disputes a no show charge, asks for a hold to be released early, or says they will be arriving after the guaranteed hour tonight.
I cannot see cards, holds or folios, and I would rather not guess at what an amount on your statement is. Leave your name, the email on the booking and your arrival date and the front desk will look at the actual folio and reply. If you are arriving late tonight, please ring the number at the top of this page so the room is held.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never say a pre authorisation has been released or give the day it will clear, because the release is instructed here and the timing belongs to a bank nothing in this window can see.
- Never quote a single no show charge, since a flexible booking, an advance purchase booking and a company billed booking behave differently on the same empty room.
- Never tell a guest arriving after the guaranteed hour that the room will still be waiting, when the desk may already have released it.
- Never describe a hold as a charge or a charge as a hold, because that one word decides whether a guest rings their bank in the morning.
Questions
- Can it tell a guest what has been held on their card?
- No. It has no view of the property system, the card machine or any bank, so it cannot see a hold, an amount or a release. It can quote the published figure and explain the mechanism, and everything about a particular card goes to the desk.
- Guests think the pre authorisation is a second charge. Does publishing it help?
- It is the cheapest fix available. Publishing the amount, the fact that it is a hold, and the plain sentence that the clearing time sits with their bank moves most of these off the desk and out of the review that starts with double charged.
- Should the no show charge be published at all?
- Yes, and per rate rather than as one line. A guest who booked the cheaper rate to save money has already accepted the harder terms, and finding that out at booking is the only time it lands calmly.
Keep reading
- Everything for a hotelRate inclusions, check in times, parking and room accessibility answer well. Live availability and a named reservation do not.
- Handling deposits and no-show fees in generalThe notice period, the charge, and why vague policy wording produces the complaint. Taking a card number in a conversation is out of scope.
- Same room, same night, two rates and a tax on topTwo rate plans on one room, a city tax added at the desk, and a figure on a travel site that is not the hotel's to explain or match.
- The guest is upstairs and the duty manager is downstairsNoise at two in the morning, a room not made up, a shower running cold. Somebody is on shift, so the reply's job is to reach them fast.
- You booked a room type, not a room numberCheck in from three, a room type booked rather than a room number, and early arrival as a request. Published answers shorten the desk queue.
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