Anh Nguyen
Verify Have you stayed in hotel before? Do you know "verify" in hotel idoms meaning? Can I ask the guests: " Can I borrow your credit card to verify $500 to deposit of any incidental charge?
May 3, 2016 1:59 PM
Answers · 2
1
Your sentence does not have a clear meaning. "verify" = "check". You may mean: "We need to charge $500 to your credit card as a deposit for any incidental charges."
May 3, 2016
In the United States and probably everywhere, there is something called an "authorization hold." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_hold It does not actually charge money to your credit card. However, it reserves the money and reduces your available credit limit. For example, if you have $1,000 in available credit, and the hotel puts a $500 hold on your card, and you then try to buy a $600 necklace with at a jewelry store, the card will be declined. Hotels do this to make sure that when you finally check out, the card will have enough available credit to pay the bill. If the card is only going to have a hold placed on it, the hotel clerk should say "We will be placing a hold of $500 on your card until you check out." When the credit card statement arrives, there will not be any $500 item visible on it. All that will show is the actual hotel bill, perhaps for $284.63, that was paid at checkout. In contrast, if I buy something for $500, and then return it because it was defective, and the store agrees to the return, then the statement will show first a $500 charge, and then a $500 credit. Sometimes merchants will place a VERY SMALL hold on a credit card, like $5 or $10, just as a way of verifying that the card is valid. I think it would be very misleading to put a $500 hold on a card and call it "verification."
May 3, 2016
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