This weekend my husband had to go to the Ranger Challenge in Indiana. He had to make hotel reservations for his group and didn't have his Government card on him at the time. He contacted Holiday Inn Express and gave them our debit card number just to reserve the rooms. Holiday Inn Express was informed that the rooms would be paid for with the Govn. card once they got there and checked in. They got there Friday night and paid for the rooms with the Govn. card as discussed. Here's where the problem starts...Saturday morning I check our account balance and see that Holiday Inn has put a "hold" on 100 dollars in our account. They call this an Authorization Hold. So I call Hubby to find out why we have this showing up on our card. He talks to someone in the office and thinks it's taken care of. Sunday morning I check our account again and now there's ANOTHER 100 dollar hold on our account. Sadly it's Sunday and the banks closed so I have to wait until this (Monday) morning to follow up. First I called my husband then I called our bank. I got some general info from the bank and called Hubby to tell him the bank said the hotel has to call them and give them a 6 number code to release the funds. So I call the hotel and tell them they need to call our bank and give them the magic number so we can have our mony back. The general manager says he has no idea what I'm talking about and since my husband and his group already checked out he has no access to their accounts. I call the bank back and relay to them what the GM has said. The bank rep said sadly in at least 75% of the cases he deals with like this the hotels just don't want to be bothered. So he was kind enough to do a one time release of our funds so I could go to the store. What I also found out was after the hotel ran our card twice they proceeded to do it a 3rd time for 104.00! So we had 304.00 on hold by the hotel and found out they can do this up to 7 times! That would be 700.00 of our account money "on hold" by the hotel! Our bank rep said we actually got lucky, most hotels hold you funds 10 days!!! This company does it for 4. Please remember-we are no longer at the hotel, the bill has been paid and we are back home AND THEY ARE STILL RUNNING OUR CARD AND PUTTING HOLDS ON OUR MONEY! The banks cannot stop or block them from doing this! PLEASE listen to this and learn from it! I really would hate for anyone else to be going thru this nightmare!

this is standard procedure at all business, especially hotels. it is not illegal or even unethical, as they have to guarantee that payment somehow and also must have additional funds on hold to cover damages and other charges that may accrue after checkout..

to be moved to Money Matters at 1700 EST.