From: "Tumbleweed" 
Newsgroups: uk.finance
Subject: Re: Pay-as-you-go debit card
Date: Tue, 26 Sep 2006 17:49:33 +0100


"Peter King"  wrote in message 
news:1159277403.728418.119650@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

>>
>> If I had a card whose credit was limited to the amount I had deposited
>> with the card company, I could have booked the room and when asked for
>> the open authorisation, tendered the card with the limited credit  and
>> if the hotel tried to charge it more than I'd agreed, they'd get
>> nowhere till I had  added more funds.
>>

OP would get nowhere, or certainly not into the hotel, as below!
>
> I believe it is standard practise in most hotels to get authorisation
> for the room rate plus a percentage to cover bar and room service
> bills. This amount is placed on hold by your bank until you check out
> and the final bill is known. If you use a prepay card with the exact
> amount of the bill loaded onto it the authorisation is unlikely to be
> sucessful. Indeed, section 4.6 of the 360money terms and condtions
> specifically mentions this
> (http://www.360money.com/splashplastic/termsconditions.html).
>

In fact, reading those, it doesnt seem such a rosy picture for these cards 
as you might think, eg forget about putting the exact amount in beforehand, 
or even the amount being immediately deducted (example, buy on Amazon, card 
deducted when goods despatched, might be several days later)

The OP should just get a credit card with a good online guarantee if thats 
his worry.
In fact he should get that anyway since even if *he* doesn't use his credit 
card on the net, fraudsters might!

-- 
Tumbleweed

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