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Pre authorizations, debit/credit card


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Hello everyone 🙂 this is my first cruise ever and I’m super thrilled. I was wondering if royal Caribbean does pre-authorization and hold on your account and how much If at all? Is it better to use a debit or credit card? What to expect. Thank you all in advance for your help. 🙂 

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If they are like other lines they probably put several pre-authorizations during the cruise that keep pace with your onboard spending. With a debit card there is a very real possibility that the pre-authorizations and final charge will be on your card at the same time so if you don't have enough in your account to cover both it would overdraw your account until the pre-authorization was released. This plus the fact that debit cards have less legal protection for fraudulent use is the reason why it is recommended not to use them for the cruise. As for the initial pre-authorization the number $300 sticks in my head but that may be from another cruise line.

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Debit cards will incur "holds" from your bank.  Credit cards are pre-authorized, but that shouldn't affect your spending.

Credit cards also offer protections that debit cards don't.

 

If all you have is a debit card, it's better to simply withdraw cash and bring that with you.

 

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6 hours ago, sheybrown23 said:

Hello everyone 🙂 this is my first cruise ever and I’m super thrilled. I was wondering if royal Caribbean does pre-authorization and hold on your account and how much If at all? Is it better to use a debit or credit card? What to expect. Thank you all in advance for your help. 🙂 

 

Don't know about the pre-authorization, but I would ALWAYS use a credit card, as the protections are far stronger than for a debit card.  Plus, depending on the specific card, POINTS!

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  • Host Kat changed the title to Pre authorizations, debit/credit card

Howdy sheybrown23! emo22.gif

 

Thank you for your first post and welcome to Cruise Critic! 👍

 

Since your post is a question regarding one particular cruise line, I have moved your thread to the Royal Caribbean International forum where it will be on topic. Also, the majority of your fellow Cruise Critic members that have sailed RCI frequent this forum.

 

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9 hours ago, sheybrown23 said:

Hello everyone 🙂 this is my first cruise ever and I’m super thrilled. I was wondering if royal Caribbean does pre-authorization and hold on your account and how much If at all? Is it better to use a debit or credit card? What to expect. Thank you all in advance for your help. 🙂 

we use cash account option then pay with CC, DC or cash 🙂

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9 hours ago, SRF said:

Use a credit card.

 

With a debit card, the holds can take several weeks to be drop off.

 

I have never had a pre-auth on a credit card take more than a day to be removed.

My credit card "pending" for daily charges took two weeks to clear after debarkation, I got notice of the final charge when I was at the curb but the pending daily charges took two weeks to clear. This was a Citibank Visa in May this year. I didn't need the credit the holds were taking but If I did I would have called the bank.

 

I use a debit card with a limited amount of money for travel that has no transfer or foreign transaction fees for getting cash in non US ports of call.

 

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19 hours ago, cb at sea said:

Debit cards will incur "holds" from your bank.  Credit cards are pre-authorized, but that shouldn't affect your spending.

Credit cards also offer protections that debit cards don't.

 

Yes they do.  The credit is blocked, as it it had been charged.

 

But normally, if the same vendor makes a charge, it supercedes the pre-auth, and the charge goes through and the pre-auth gets cancelled.

 

So RCI put a $500 pre-auth on your card.  It lowers your available credit by $500.  Say you start with $700 available credit, so now you have $200 left.  Then they charge your card for $600.  It will go through, as it is the same vendor, and the $500 pre-auth is counted against the charge, plus another $100 of your available credit.

 

If you tried to charge $300 purchase between the pre-auth and the actual charge, it would not go through, as you only have $200 available credit, due to the pre-auth.

 

I had a hotel screw up last year.  They did the pre-auth, but the book keeping though they canceled it.  So they tried to pre-auth it again, and again and again.  But there was not enough credit left to charge the entire pre-auth again (it was almost $3000).  So they did smaller amounts, until my credit available was $79.  Which caused some issues. 🙂

 

It took a 4 way call with me, the hotel, the credit card company, and the hotel's bank to get it straightened out.

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Use a credit card that you have plenty of limit on. Whether you do debit or credit they will send pre-authorizations to the bank when you check in. As you spend money on the ship, they will add to the pre-authorizations. So, say you start with a $300 preauth, then spend $500, they will add on an additional $300 preauth. Now you leave the ship and the $600 in preauthorizations are still pending and they charge the $500 for your bill. So you are currently tying up $1100 on the account when you only spent $500. This could be problematic on a credit card with a low limit, but most of the time it's not a big deal. It gets really problematic when you use a debit card and now have automatic bills getting paid or try to use an ATM and suddenly find out that there's an extra $600  in your account that you can't use.

Edited by sanger727
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2 hours ago, sanger727 said:

Use a credit card that you have plenty of limit on. Whether you do debit or credit they will send pre-authorizations to the bank when you check in. As you spend money on the ship, they will add to the pre-authorizations. So, say you start with a $300 preauth, then spend $500, they will add on an additional $300 preauth. Now you leave the ship and the $600 in preauthorizations are still pending and they charge the $500 for your bill. So you are currently tying up $1100 on the account when you only spent $500. This could be problematic on a credit card with a low limit, but most of the time it's not a big deal. It gets really problematic when you use a debit card and now have automatic bills getting paid or try to use an ATM and suddenly find out that there's an extra $600  in your account that you can't use.

Royal did a pre authorization daily, for me it was the tips, so $15 a day and then plus some things I purchased and a trip to the doctor so I had about 15 pre-authorizations from store, tips, doctor, maybe a few bar drinks, The walk off was about $450 and that was the same total as all the dailies but it wasn't a new charge, the rest dropped off after about two weeks. The only reason I paid attention to it is I wanted it to clear before my statement date and I wanted to make sure I wasn't double billed.

 

I think that people that are tight on credit or debit card need to do cash and settle up the night before so they don't have to deal with the "double" deduct from available funds, even though  they only get charged once they lose access to their money /credit.

I don't like standing in lines so I use a credit card and check my account every day or every other day.

 

 

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4 minutes ago, AlanF65 said:

I think that people that are tight on credit or debit card need to do cash and settle up the night before so they don't have to deal with the "double" deduct from available funds, even though  they only get charged once they lose access to their money /credit.

I don't like standing in lines so I use a credit card and check my account every day or every other day.


  We are not tight on debit or credit, but unless you are using a separate debit card you are exposing a lot of your own money. Credit card is bank's money, so bank protects them much better. Of course if it is separate debit card things can be different.

We always use credit card.

 

    In Europe and other parts of the world pin is used (and responsibility is on card holder to watch pin), so it is difficult to steal from debit card. In US ships use Debit as Credit cards so no pin and while it is 0 liability and bank will return money, this might not happen right away.

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As I read this thread, I'm wondering if those who are trying to cruise with extremely limited liquidity (i.e., $1-5k+\- in cash, debit or credit) know that, even with international medical insurance coverage, most foreign hospitals (particularly in third world countries) will require payment up front for emergency services. IMO, anything less than a $25k credit limit (even if it requires multiple cards) is a very bad idea.

 

On the somewhat humorous (but eye opening) side of this issue: One of my most vivid memories of winter time I spent in the Austrian Alps many years ago is the Red Cross emblem on the side of a parked rescue helicopter that had Visa and Master Card logos under each side the emblem's horizontal red stripe.

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27 minutes ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

As I read this thread, I'm wondering if those who are trying to cruise with extremely limited liquidity (i.e., $1-5k+\- in cash, debit or credit) know that, even with international medical insurance coverage, most foreign hospitals (particularly in third world countries) will require payment up front for emergency services. IMO, anything less than a $25k credit limit (even if it requires multiple cards) is a very bad idea.

 

On the somewhat humorous (but eye opening) side of this issue: One of my most vivid memories of winter time I spent in the Austrian Alps many years ago is the Red Cross emblem on the side of a parked rescue helicopter that had Visa and Master Card logos under each side the emblem's horizontal red stripe.

I agree.  I have seen in Mexico a number of times that the hospital would not let someone leave until the bill was paid and their insurance wanted them to pay and file for reimbursement.

With that said, I never use a debit card.  We are disciplined and pay off the credit cards every month and get the points.  Plus, a lot more protection on credit cards, especially in foreign countries.

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29 minutes ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

As I read this thread, I'm wondering if those who are trying to cruise with extremely limited liquidity (i.e., $1-5k+\- in cash, debit or credit) know that, even with international medical insurance coverage, most foreign hospitals (particularly in third world countries) will require payment up front for emergency services. IMO, anything less than a $25k credit limit (even if it requires multiple cards) is a very bad idea.

 

On the somewhat humorous (but eye opening) side of this issue: One of my most vivid memories of winter time I spent in the Austrian Alps many years ago is the Red Cross emblem on the side of a parked rescue helicopter that had Visa and Master Card logos under each side the emblem's horizontal red stripe.

Very few people have the luxury of $25k in a credit limit and most people will choose to travel even if they know the information that you shared. Fortunately for them those types of events are rare.

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52 minutes ago, Tatka said:

We are not tight on debit or credit, but unless you are using a separate debit card you are exposing a lot of your own money. Credit card is bank's money, so bank protects them much better. Of course if it is separate debit card things can be different.

We always use credit card.

I use a separate debit card for travel with a few thousand dollars in it just for the trip.

 

53 minutes ago, Tatka said:

In Europe and other parts of the world pin is used (and responsibility is on card holder to watch pin), so it is difficult to steal from debit card. In US ships use Debit as Credit cards so no pin and while it is 0 liability and bank will return money, this might not happen right away.

 

My debit cards require a pin when I use it. Some vendors treat it as a charge.

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27 minutes ago, sparks1093 said:

Very few people have the luxury of $25k in a credit limit and most people will choose to travel even if they know the information that you shared. Fortunately for them those types of events are rare.

"Very few" may be somewhat of an overgeneralization. Per nextadvisor.com: 

According to data from 2015 that has been analyzed by the credit bureau Experian, the average credit limit for people in the U.S. greatly varies depending on what their credit scores are.  ....people with FICO scores of 781 and above had an average total credit limit across all of their cards of $33,371.

And that was their "average" almost 5 years ago.

I'm guessing that there are more than "very few" people who know how to manage their money sufficiently to have excellent credit ratings.

 

Edited by Flatbush Flyer
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My debit cards require a pin when I use it. Some vendors treat it as a charge.


Then you should be good.
We only use credit cards and just pay balance by the end of the cycle to prevent interest. We get rewards for using cc.
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13 minutes ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

"Very few" may be somewhat of an overgeneralization. Per nextadvisor.com: 

According to data from 2015 that has been analyzed by the credit bureau Experian, the average credit limit for people in the U.S. greatly varies depending on what their credit scores are.  ....people with FICO scores of 781 and above had an average total credit limit across all of their cards of $33,371.

And that was their "average" almost 5 years ago.

I'm guessing that there are more than "very few" people who know how to manage their money sufficiently to have excellent credit ratings.

 

Well, that may be so but how many have a FICO score of 781? A quick google search shows that the percentage of folks that have a score of 800-850 is just under 21% and since 781 is at the upper end of the next lower scale we can probably add a couple of percentage points and say about 25% of consumers have a FICO of 781 or greater. Be that as it may, since we are discussing mainstream lines (since we're on a mainstream forum) I will modify my comment to say "very few people who sail with mainstream lines have the luxury of $25k in a credit limit". 

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31 minutes ago, sparks1093 said:

Well, that may be so but how many have a FICO score of 781? A quick google search shows that the percentage of folks that have a score of 800-850 is just under 21% and since 781 is at the upper end of the next lower scale we can probably add a couple of percentage points and say about 25% of consumers have a FICO of 781 or greater. Be that as it may, since we are discussing mainstream lines (since we're on a mainstream forum) I will modify my comment to say "very few people who sail with mainstream lines have the luxury of $25k in a credit limit". 

Interesting logic and conclusion(s).

Perhaps one of the reasons that some of an estimated approx 25% of folks have a great FICO score is because they choose to only spend their cruise dollars on mainstream lines.

 

Bottom line is that it's all about wise management of money.

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2 hours ago, Flatbush Flyer said:

Interesting logic and conclusion(s).

Perhaps one of the reasons that some of an estimated approx 25% of folks have a great FICO score is because they choose to only spend their cruise dollars on mainstream lines.

 

Bottom line is that it's all about wise management of money.

 

Exactly... So of us with score between 840 and 850  sail mostly in insides.

You don't need such high score to have high limits on cards though.

Edited by Tatka
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