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PostFX Card for hotel in USA

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  • 21-08-2013 2:25pm
    #1
    CodeCrunch
    Registered Users Posts: 2 ✭


    I'll be staying in a hotel in the US soon and I was thinking of using a PostFX card (An Post's US$ currency prepaid debit card) to pay for the hotel. The hotel bill will be approx. $2000.
    1. Has anyone used a PostFX card to pay for a hotel in the US?
    2. Any issues with paying large amounts on a PostFX card? My bank issued visa debit card has a relatively low maximum transaction amount per day, not enough to cover my hotel bill.
    3. Has the fact that there is no name on the card been a problem?
    4. Usually the hotel will swipe a credit card to cover incidentals, but will a PostFX card be good enough?

    Thanks!
    Tagged:


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    #2
    RachealB
    Registered Users Posts: 64 ✭✭RachealB


    Hi, I had not used them but when I went took my hubbies card and was not able to use as not my name on card?.. Had to take money out of bank and pay for hotel in cash and some for incidentals. It probally depends on hotel.? Best to ring them. Where are you staying? I know with Cassa or Hilton always paid cash


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    #3
    Yggr of Asgard
    Registered Users Posts: 5,178 ✭✭✭Yggr of Asgard


    CodeCrunch wrote: »
    I'll be staying in a hotel in the US soon and I was thinking of using a PostFX card (An Post's US$ currency prepaid debit card) to pay for the hotel. The hotel bill will be approx. $2000.
    1. Has anyone used a PostFX card to pay for a hotel in the US?
    2. Any issues with paying large amounts on a PostFX card? My bank issued visa debit card has a relatively low maximum transaction amount per day, not enough to cover my hotel bill.
    3. Has the fact that there is no name on the card been a problem?
    4. Usually the hotel will swipe a credit card to cover incidentals, but will a PostFX card be good enough?

    Thanks!

    I would not recommend to use a debit card like the AnPost card for a hotel stay. While in theory you can spend $5,000 on the card in 24 hour the way hotels block amounts will mean that you will loose access to funds for quite a while.

    When you check in the hotel will not only take the room rate but also an estimate of what they think you are likely to spend on other charges and reserve it.

    When you check out in theory the hotel should release the amount that is over the actual bill immediately and just charge the real amount but in practice that is not always the case, in effect most hotels just ask for the full amount at check-out not even touching the original authorization which can be blocked for 7 to 30 days depending on the merchant used.

    So if you don't have a credit card and really need to use the AnPost card than make sure that when you check out, they charge against the original authorization and release the amount over the estimation they did so that you have access to the funds again.

    I have a friend who uses the card in hotels in the US and noticed that the amount they block are higher with the no name card than on credit card he used but otherwise he had no problems with it.


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    #4
    CodeCrunch
    Registered Users Posts: 2 ✭CodeCrunch


    Thanks RachealB and dublin-texas for the replies. They're most helpful.

    Has anyone else had experience of using the PostFX card for hotels in the USA?


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