Comment by ericmay | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ericmay | Hacker News Reader

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No, it's a common practice in most western countries and can confirm for you a list of a dozen or more hotels ranging from $100/night to $1000/night that do this in countries ranging from Ireland to France to Japan. It's really no big deal and is extremely common. In fact, France as I discovered does this at the gas stations where they put $200 or so authorizations on your card for absolutely no good reason.

There are various scenarios but I think the one you are thinking of is you show up to the hotel, hand them your cash, and pay at the desk. Often times, though I have not been in a hotel that will not ask for a card, they ask you for a credit card and put an authorization on there in case you smoke in the room, or maybe turn it into spaghetti or any other random incidentals.

An authorization is basically the hotel telling the credit card that they're "reserving space" so to speak on your credit limit on the card.

Regarding your rental car experience, that's a common scam and again moreso seen in Europe, but not really anything to do with the method of payment. They would have just mailed you a bill for the damages instead. I guess you could ignore it.

> France as I discovered does this at the gas stations where they put $200 or so authorizations on your card for absolutely no good reason.

It's the same here but I'm not sure how it could work another way? They have to make sure you have the money to pay for the fuel you're pumping, it doesn't seem weird to me.

I can't imagine a pump that allows you to pump as you wish and then just begs you to pay. That works for the manned stations with low traffic only.

That’s how it works if I choose “pay at cashier” - if I walk up and don’t have the money the fuel is already in my car.

Where? In the U.S.? Whenever I have paid for gas with cash or from the cashier, I pay for it in advance, “Give me $10 of regular unleaded!”

Many service stations in Canada still operate this way.

I think “everywhere in the world except the US” is probably right. I live in a major city in the UK and did it last week.

Before the 2008 Great Recession, most gas stations around me allowed people to pump then pay cash. After some stories of people driving off without paying, the stations changed their policies.

It also works like that at manned stations in France, but there are few.

I think maybe what happens is they tap your cards fully possible authorization limit and if you end up trying to get gas multiple times in a short time period (24/48 hours) you can't use your card because they can't hit it for the full limit.

The gas station is supposed to release the authorization after the real payment clears when you stop the pump. So they should not pile up even if you do many visits in short period of time.

In Finland the has pump firsts ask you to choose how big an authorization you want to do when you enter your card to the slot. It will not allow you to pump more than that and the authorization is then replaced by real charge before you enter you car.

I think that's what the problem was in France specifically, the authorizations don't clear as you expect and then your credit card authorization limit gets hit and when you go somewhere else to get gas and use the same kind, it gets mysteriously declined.

I've only had this specific problem in France. Funny enough my American Express cards worked better than my Visa or Mastercard did.

It ends up being bank dependant a bit. (USA here)

If I use either my cashapp or chime card I had better have the full $100-200 on there or it will fail the authorisation.

On the other hand my main bank is a local bank and they treat all gas station preauth's as a $1 charge. So I can have say $30 in the account and still get $25 in gas whereas many other cards/banks would just decline.

The rental experience has everything to do with payment. With a credit card, a person has to prove they shouldn't have been charged by a corporation, and without, the corporation has to prove a person should be charged. That's a massive difference. It blows my mind how people think putting down a credit card is normal. You're basically giving somebody access to your money to be used at their leasure.

> You're basically giving somebody access to your money to be used at their leasure.

Well, it’s the issuing banks money, not mine. At the end of the day the process ends up the same. If I tell the credit card company to pound sand on a charge I disagree with they send me a bill and then send it to collections.

If I tell the rental car company to pound sand, they send me a bill and send it to collections.

You actually have more power and leeway when using a credit card because if there are enough disputes or issues then the rental agency can be banned from access to the network. If you pay with cash there’s nobody else involved.

The credit card is even better because if you dispute a charge and have evidence you have someone on your side against the rental agency.

Even with all that being said, it’s worth getting a few thousand or so bucks/year back in cash back on the off chance something like this happens while you continue to pay full price for everything you buy.

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