Just heard a few friends of mine use prepaid credit cards for online purchases or PayPal or hotels
They do this for security in case of limiting or eliminating double charges. Stolen details or unauthorised charges
I am rather curious about how it works with hotels. As don't they imprint your credit card so you need available credit
If only there existed such a financial product that used a debit system, instead of a credit system.
I'm off to the patent office.
Unless your booking is non-refundable, otherwise they will not charge you when you make your booking. Most of them will NOT even do pre-authorization (which will lock your money in). I have never had issue before. Used my Coles Reloadable MasterCard on Booking.com, and some other prepaid credit card before that.
I seem to be asked for a minibar or room deposit between 50 and 100 for a few countries I've been to every time.
yes. you need to check the T&C. Some hotel charges certain amount of deposit.
But for my case, usually I just go for pay nothing and free cancellation. I guess it's up to the hotel. And if they would like to charge 50 - 100, you just need to make sure the card has 50 - 100 credit when you make the booking, you don't need to have enough credit for the entire stay payment.
p/s: After my stay or during check-in in some cases, I will ask the front desk to put the charges to my actual credit card. So that they will not charge the whole stay onto an empty prepaid visa/master card
I am using Load&Go prepaid visa card from australia post ( maximum limit $1000 ).For online shopping , pay bills ..ect
Isn't that high cost card? There are cheaper options, e.g. 28 Degree / Velocity Global wallet.
no
I am rather curious about how it works with hotels
You mean prepaid debit card. Hotels can use debit cards the same way as credit cards, they put a hold/authorisation of $50 or $100 or whatever on your available funds. This hold goes away in like 7 days. With a debit card, this is not ideal because you lose access to your actual hard earned money for a long time.
Look at it this way:
As a credit card user, my available funds are probably $1000 or more, so $50 less for a short while doesn't bother me.
But as a prepaid debit card holder my available funds are more like $200 and losing $50 for 7 days could make a big impact on my holiday.
A lot of people use Travel Debit cards overseas, but you should always use a credit card (not debit card) for the hotel temporary minibar hold.
Yeah that sounds about right to me too.
Just met a guy who says he uses prepaid cards so that they can't double charge or over charge
Can't see how that will work because preauthotursations need to have funds available.
I know people who buy stuff on PayPal with $100 cards so that deceptive auto recharge won't work
If the hotel needs to preauthorise $50 and his prepaid card has $50 available funds then it will work. Is that what you meant?
It'll work, it just means his prepaid card available funds is $0 for about 7 days. He cannot use a prepaid card with less than $50 available funds in this instance.
Also I dont know any examples of PayPal auto charging stuff, unless you sign up for a subscription like spotify? What deceptive auto recharge are you referring to?
Yeah m that's what I thought to.
Unless you have a card with exact balance of your charge it won't stop anything.
Sometimes when you buy on PayPal. When you press process and accept there is a line that says you agree to auto recharging.
Maybe it depends on the product.
And then you have to go into PayPal settings and to unclikx auto recharge.
I had to do that recently
If you use a prepaid card in most cases you loose the ability to do a charge back. Some of the registered cards let you do it but charge a fee (ie $20).
Thats a very good point
Prepaid credit cards? If you pre-pay it how does it called "Credit card"?