Traveling? Here’s Why You Should Give The Hotel A Credit Card Instead of Debit Card When You Arrive

Many people pay for hotel rooms at the time of booking to save money. But you’ll probably notice that whether you’re paying on the spot or are paid up already, you’re going to be asked to hand over a credit or debit card when you check in to your hotel room.

There’s a reason hotels do this. Hotels use your credit or debit card to cover unexpected charges that could arise in the course of your stay. These may include room service, minibar purchases, or damage to the room, if it occurs.

Plus, you may decide to dine at your hotel’s restaurant. If you opt to charge your meal to your room, that’s another thing your credit or debit card would be used for.

You’ll typically have the choice to give your hotel a credit card or a debit card, as touched on in this Reddit post. But here’s why you may want to favor a credit card.

Better protection

Generally speaking, credit cards offer better protection from fraud than debit cards. That could work to your benefit in the event of disputed or unauthorized charges on your card.

Say you’re accused of damaging your room when you didn’t do it. With a credit card, you may have more leeway for fighting that charge. Similarly, say you’re charged for a minibar purchase you never made. Again, disputing it becomes easier with a credit card.

A less disruptive hold on funds

When you hand over a credit or debit card at check-in, the hotel commonly puts a hold on your card to account for incidental charges you incur. With a credit card, that hold is applied to your credit limit. With a debit card, that hold is applied to your bank account balance.

Here’s why that could be a problem. Say you have $1,000 in your checking account and there’s a $300 hold placed on your debit card that doesn’t get released for a good number of days. If you end up needing more than $700 out of your checking account, you could run into an issue.

On the other hand, let’s say your credit card offers you a spending limit that’s well beyond what you normally charge in expenses. In that case, a hold may not be such a big deal. Going back to the example above, if you’re looking at a $300 hold on a $7,000 credit limit, and you normally only charge $3,000 worth of expenses per month, that hold may not hamper you in any way.

You can earn points

When you charge expenses on a debit card, you don’t earn points or cash back. With a credit card, you often do. And that’s another reason to hand over a credit card at check-in.

Let’s say you do end up incurring some extra expenses in the course of your hotel stay, like taking a drink from your room’s minibar. If you have a credit card on file, that expense will get charged to your card, and you’ll earn points on it, provided your card has a rewards program. And you might as well score points on purchases when you can.