Sea pass card question

[AFwifelife]

2 minutes ago, jordanaire said:

I, too, am confused about these "holds". If I use a credit card on my onboard account, will a hold be placed on it? If so, will I not be able to use this card at all until the hold is released? We plan to stay in Florida for 3 days after the cruise and my credit card will be our major form of payment for hotel, food and car rental. I sure wouldn't want any holds tying up the use of my one and only credit card. Any input?

 

It's not a hold on a credit card, it's a pre-authorization "charge".  It shows up as a small dollar amount on your active statement but will fall off.  Doesn't tie up a significant amount of credit available unlike using a debit card which places a larger hold on the actual amount in your account.  Unless this is your first time ever traveling with a credit card, you've experienced this many times without even knowing about it.

[Clarea]

3 hours ago, jordanaire said:

I, too, am confused about these "holds". If I use a credit card on my onboard account, will a hold be placed on it? If so, will I not be able to use this card at all until the hold is released? We plan to stay in Florida for 3 days after the cruise and my credit card will be our major form of payment for hotel, food and car rental. I sure wouldn't want any holds tying up the use of my one and only credit card. Any input?

 

They don't hold the entire card, just your daily charges.    If you have a very low credit limit, it could affect you.

 

Plus, you should always have more than one credit card.  You never know when the company will turn off the card because of a fraud alert.

[LeeW]

4 hours ago, Host Clarea said:

 

They don't hold the entire card, just your daily charges.    If you have a very low credit limit, it could affect you.

 

Plus, you should always have more than one credit card.  You never know when the company will turn off the card because of a fraud alert.

 

Good point, Bob.  OP, you need to let your credit card company know you are traveling.  Especially if you only have one card.

[brillohead]

10 hours ago, jordanaire said:

I, too, am confused about these "holds". If I use a credit card on my onboard account, will a hold be placed on it? If so, will I not be able to use this card at all until the hold is released? We plan to stay in Florida for 3 days after the cruise and my credit card will be our major form of payment for hotel, food and car rental. I sure wouldn't want any holds tying up the use of my one and only credit card. Any input?

As stated, they put a pre-auth charge through for the expected amount of your purchase, just like any other establishment, but it's ONLY for that charge, not the entire card.

For example, when you have to swipe your credit card at a gas pump before pumping the fuel -- the pump checks with your bank (pre-authorizes a charge for a certain amount, like $100) to make sure your card is valid and has available funds for charging.  Later that day or the next day, the charge goes through for the exact amount of the fuel you purchased, and the pre-auth "hold" goes away.

The whole hold/pre-authorization thing is only an issue when you're going to be cutting it relatively close to either your credit limit (for a credit card) or your account balance (for a debit card).  

IMPORTANT TO KNOW ABOUT DEBIT CARDS:  Even if they have a Visa or MasterCard logo on them, they are NOT credit cards and they do NOT provide the same protections that you would have by law (Fair Credit Billing Act) if using an actual credit card.  Consumer advocacy groups do NOT recommend using a debit card for travel or online purchases unless absolutely necessary, as you don't have the same ability to dispute charges for unauthorized or fraudulent purchases.    

I know someone who had their debit card connected to their Xbox account, and their son's account got hacked and purchases were made against their account.  If it had been a credit card, the money could have been reversed easily as an unauthorized/fraudulent charge, but because they used a debit card, the lost money was treated as a theft and they had to jump through all kinds of hoops with their bank to try to get it back.  In the meantime, because the debit card was connected to the same account that they used for their household expenses, they were simply out that stolen cash that they needed to pay bills in the meantime.  

The same thing can happen if your debit card number gets stolen or "skimmed" -- you are just out the money that gets stolen in many cases, or even if you are able to get the bank to return it, you may have a huge hassle (and a lot of wasted time) to get that to happen.

I only use my debit card as an ATM card, and I use a credit card (and pay it off each month so there is no interest charged) for purchasing gasoline, travel, online purchases, store purchases, etc.  

[SRF]

21 hours ago, blackshirt said:

 

I hear what you are saying but I’ve never seen any pending charge count against my credit limit. When I look at my account online, my remaining credit limit does not include any of the pending charges. Yes, it is possible those pre-authorizations could be denied if they put you over your credit limit but I suspect that is a card by card or bank by bank decision. 

 

May be company dependent.  But the way I found the issue was I was in the middle of a business trip, went into my account and saw my available credit was $79.

 

The pre-auths did NOT show as pending charges.  They only reduced the credit limit.  I had to call to find out what was going on and was told there was about 6 or 8 pre-auth or declined pre-auths.

[NewarkCC]

On 2/19/2019 at 9:28 AM, SRF said:

I had a situation last year, where the hotel did the pre-auth, then that evening, the accounting team, removed the pre-auth.  Then they started to redo the pre-auth.  About 15 times, for various amounts, as the original one was still in place at the credit card end, and there was not enough credit (due to other travel) to handle a double pre-auth.   It took a chat with the manager, and a 4 way phone call (me, hotel, hotel's bank, credit card company), from Hong Kong, to get things fixed.

The multiple authorizations before the final charge is exactly what RCCL does, requiring 2x available credit.

 

After a gaggle of cruises, I finally tried the CASH route......so easy.  Get on the ship and give guest services $500 (not required, they will extend you a $300-$500 credit to start if you prefer). Then stop down to guest services up to the last night and put a credit card on the account.

 

1) No preauthorizations on the card.

2) If you have a balance on your account they will charge it to the card.

2) If you have a credit balance from the cash, the will refund the balance  to your card the day after your cruise.

[gatour]

7 hours ago, NewarkCC said:

The multiple authorizations before the final charge is exactly what RCCL does, requiring 2x available credit.

 

After a gaggle of cruises, I finally tried the CASH route......so easy.  Get on the ship and give guest services $500 (not required, they will extend you a $300-$500 credit to start if you prefer). Then stop down to guest services up to the last night and put a credit card on the account.

 

1) No preauthorizations on the card.

2) If you have a balance on your account they will charge it to the card.

2) If you have a credit balance from the cash, the will refund the balance  to your card the day after your cruise.

One negative is having to stand in line at guest services.  On the first and last day they can get long.

[SRF]

With a credit card, when that vendor finally charges, typically the pre-auths go away right away.

 

In my case, they kept trying to charge some $3500 again and again, even though they had one in place already.