There are various scenarios but I think the one you are thinking of is you show up to the hotel, hand them your cash, and pay at the desk. Often times, though I have not been in a hotel that will not ask for a card, they ask you for a credit card and put an authorization on there in case you smoke in the room, or maybe turn it into spaghetti or any other random incidentals.
An authorization is basically the hotel telling the credit card that they're "reserving space" so to speak on your credit limit on the card.
Regarding your rental car experience, that's a common scam and again moreso seen in Europe, but not really anything to do with the method of payment. They would have just mailed you a bill for the damages instead. I guess you could ignore it.
It's the same here but I'm not sure how it could work another way? They have to make sure you have the money to pay for the fuel you're pumping, it doesn't seem weird to me.
I can't imagine a pump that allows you to pump as you wish and then just begs you to pay. That works for the manned stations with low traffic only.
If I use either my cashapp or chime card I had better have the full $100-200 on there or it will fail the authorisation.
On the other hand my main bank is a local bank and they treat all gas station preauth's as a $1 charge. So I can have say $30 in the account and still get $25 in gas whereas many other cards/banks would just decline.
Well, it’s the issuing banks money, not mine. At the end of the day the process ends up the same. If I tell the credit card company to pound sand on a charge I disagree with they send me a bill and then send it to collections.
If I tell the rental car company to pound sand, they send me a bill and send it to collections.
You actually have more power and leeway when using a credit card because if there are enough disputes or issues then the rental agency can be banned from access to the network. If you pay with cash there’s nobody else involved.
The credit card is even better because if you dispute a charge and have evidence you have someone on your side against the rental agency.
Even with all that being said, it’s worth getting a few thousand or so bucks/year back in cash back on the off chance something like this happens while you continue to pay full price for everything you buy.
I can't remember ever NOT having to leave a CC for a deposit in any hotel I've ever stayed at in any country in my life. I'm sure it's happened, but it sure isn't remarkable when they DO require a card.
I do most of my bookings from US soil with a credit card for guarantee or pre-pay (I do a mix of both), but never direct bank account. So one could imagine the rules for my bookings are different than yours. However I do sometimes make bookings mid-trip, and have not noticed a different damage policy, and, in Europe, I check in with an EU passport so I'd probably be subjected to the same rules/policies as any other European.
