Online reservations and 3rd party credit cards

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Morticia

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We've seen a big uptick in the number of online reservations we're getting. The other side to that coin is that 20% of these online reservations are coming thru with a 3rd party credit card. This is a big difference from past reservations. Is this nationwide? Just local to my neck of the woods or what?
In the past week, it was 5 reservations with someone else's name on the card. That's a lot of 3rd party cards.
 
Joey Bloggs said:
We had that last year/yr prev, it was overwhelming. People can pay for their stay, but don't have cc's to book the room so use Mommy's.
Well, Mommy IS paying because I charged her card! Or Daddy in the case of most of these. It's been a man's name on the card, different from both incoming guests.
 
We had that last year/yr prev, it was overwhelming. People can pay for their stay, but don't have cc's to book the room so use Mommy's.
Since we are a B&B we don't mind cancellations do we...I am going to nip this in the bud this year! Just had a call to cancel for tomorrow and sat. "What is your cancellation policy?" Uh the one you agreed to and ticked the box and it showed on your confirmation, and your "your visit is three days away" email and website? I am saying this now "We are sorry for your situation and wish we could do something, but we are family business and also have obligations"
 
So do you get the CC holders personal information? i.e. address and phone #? Many businesses now require a faxed form where they agree to the charge where you get THEIR signature. I am pondering doing the same, though this has not been common place here. Everyone that has a checking account has a CC (debit w/ MC or V) so anyone without a way to secure their reservation with a CC is questionable to me.
 
So do you get the CC holders personal information? i.e. address and phone #? Many businesses now require a faxed form where they agree to the charge where you get THEIR signature. I am pondering doing the same, though this has not been common place here. Everyone that has a checking account has a CC (debit w/ MC or V) so anyone without a way to secure their reservation with a CC is questionable to me..
I have no info about the owner of the card. No address, no phone number, nothing. I think I am going to start requiring it. "If this is a 3rd party credit card, you must provide the card holder's full address with telephone number as well as your information."
 
And yet another one! Came in while I was on the phone. OK, I'm going to email back and request all of the cardholder's info and will let you know what happens.
 
we get it a lot as we deal with a lot of businesses (ie office card is used) but we have never had a problem so far.
 
You guys will probably think I'm a doofus, but today is the first time in 3 years that I have manually entered a cc number. It was a business traveller w/ cc back at the office. I knew that would be the case, and rechecked with Tom W how to do it without the card, and... it went through!!! Now all I have to do is see how much extra it costs me not to have the card in hand.
As a non tourist place, I have at least 50% business guests, so I send out lots of invoices for payment by check. For the locals who want to pay for their grown children to come back to town to stay, they either get gift certificates, or I invoice them, too. Haven't had a 3rd party cc out of left field.
By the way, this business guest is from Nottingham, England (home of Robin Hood). Outside the breakfast room window we were able to watch a possum. That was a first for the lady from Sherwood Forest!
 
You guys will probably think I'm a doofus, but today is the first time in 3 years that I have manually entered a cc number. It was a business traveller w/ cc back at the office. I knew that would be the case, and rechecked with Tom W how to do it without the card, and... it went through!!! Now all I have to do is see how much extra it costs me not to have the card in hand.
As a non tourist place, I have at least 50% business guests, so I send out lots of invoices for payment by check. For the locals who want to pay for their grown children to come back to town to stay, they either get gift certificates, or I invoice them, too. Haven't had a 3rd party cc out of left field.
By the way, this business guest is from Nottingham, England (home of Robin Hood). Outside the breakfast room window we were able to watch a possum. That was a first for the lady from Sherwood Forest!.
I liken it to with swiping the card, the bite is up to the wrist. Entering the numbers it is up to the elbow.
 
OK, guests showed up last night who were here on a 3rd party card. No idea who the 3rd party is at this point (no reply to emails or calls). We asked them for payment. They said, 'Just charge it to the card on file.' Hmmm. They've done this before at a hotel me thinks.
So, where do we stand? Do we charge it to the card on file or insist on them pulling out some plastic of their own when they checkout?
We're going to ask for the address & phone number of the 3rd party so we have that on record if there are any complaints down the road as to unknown charges on the 3rd party card.
 
we get it a lot as we deal with a lot of businesses (ie office card is used) but we have never had a problem so far..
we get it a lot as we deal with a lot of businesses (ie office card is used) but we have never had a problem so far.
Do they HAVE the cc with them? Or do they expect you to run it by hand?
 
OK, guests showed up last night who were here on a 3rd party card. No idea who the 3rd party is at this point (no reply to emails or calls). We asked them for payment. They said, 'Just charge it to the card on file.' Hmmm. They've done this before at a hotel me thinks.
So, where do we stand? Do we charge it to the card on file or insist on them pulling out some plastic of their own when they checkout?
We're going to ask for the address & phone number of the 3rd party so we have that on record if there are any complaints down the road as to unknown charges on the 3rd party card..
Morticia said:
OK, guests showed up last night who were here on a 3rd party card. No idea who the 3rd party is at this point (no reply to emails or calls). We asked them for payment. They said, 'Just charge it to the card on file.' Hmmm. They've done this before at a hotel me thinks.
So, where do we stand? Do we charge it to the card on file or insist on them pulling out some plastic of their own when they checkout?
We're going to ask for the address & phone number of the 3rd party so we have that on record if there are any complaints down the road as to unknown charges on the 3rd party card.
If you're getting a lot of these 3rd party cards, I would consider changing your policy on your website and booking system to say that 3rd party payments will be charged in full at the time the reservation is made or when your cancellation period kicks in.
When guests ask me to just charge the card they made the reservation with, I tell them the banks need me to actually swipe their card for security reasons. I'm making sure the card really belongs to them.
 
I put a notice on our policies (which need to be checked off) that third party credit cards are not allowed, and that the contact information entered must be the same as the payment address for the cc used. This has cut down on the third party resos, one called me and said she was buying it as a gift so I told her to enter HER contact info as well as the guests' on the form because our cc processor does address verification and we get charged a higher fee if the address doesn't match what they have on file.
For check-outs, we just tell them we do not store their cc number so we will need to swipe their card. We never do "just put it on the card you have" because it costs less to swipe the card than manually key it. Just like the deposit issue, you just need to have your answer ready when they try to whiz this stuff by you...if you don't they'll get one over on you every time.
 
OK, guests showed up last night who were here on a 3rd party card. No idea who the 3rd party is at this point (no reply to emails or calls). We asked them for payment. They said, 'Just charge it to the card on file.' Hmmm. They've done this before at a hotel me thinks.
So, where do we stand? Do we charge it to the card on file or insist on them pulling out some plastic of their own when they checkout?
We're going to ask for the address & phone number of the 3rd party so we have that on record if there are any complaints down the road as to unknown charges on the 3rd party card..
Morticia said:
OK, guests showed up last night who were here on a 3rd party card. No idea who the 3rd party is at this point (no reply to emails or calls). We asked them for payment. They said, 'Just charge it to the card on file.' Hmmm. They've done this before at a hotel me thinks.
So, where do we stand? Do we charge it to the card on file or insist on them pulling out some plastic of their own when they checkout?
We're going to ask for the address & phone number of the 3rd party so we have that on record if there are any complaints down the road as to unknown charges on the 3rd party card.
If you're getting a lot of these 3rd party cards, I would consider changing your policy on your website and booking system to say that 3rd party payments will be charged in full at the time the reservation is made or when your cancellation period kicks in.
When guests ask me to just charge the card they made the reservation with, I tell them the banks need me to actually swipe their card for security reasons. I'm making sure the card really belongs to them.
.
That is what I did...everyone seemed to appreciate the remark that you were looking out for their credit card security.
The only 3rd party credit cards that I got were for business guests, where I knew the owner of the card (example, faculty of our university paying for a room for a guest of the Univ). All my biz travelers used their own company card.
Sometimes we'd have our younger military folks hold the room with a credit card and then pay with cash.
This third party credit card thing for leisure travelers sounds weird to me....am I the only one??
 
OK, guests showed up last night who were here on a 3rd party card. No idea who the 3rd party is at this point (no reply to emails or calls). We asked them for payment. They said, 'Just charge it to the card on file.' Hmmm. They've done this before at a hotel me thinks.
So, where do we stand? Do we charge it to the card on file or insist on them pulling out some plastic of their own when they checkout?
We're going to ask for the address & phone number of the 3rd party so we have that on record if there are any complaints down the road as to unknown charges on the 3rd party card..
Morticia said:
OK, guests showed up last night who were here on a 3rd party card. No idea who the 3rd party is at this point (no reply to emails or calls). We asked them for payment. They said, 'Just charge it to the card on file.' Hmmm. They've done this before at a hotel me thinks.
So, where do we stand? Do we charge it to the card on file or insist on them pulling out some plastic of their own when they checkout?
We're going to ask for the address & phone number of the 3rd party so we have that on record if there are any complaints down the road as to unknown charges on the 3rd party card.
If you're getting a lot of these 3rd party cards, I would consider changing your policy on your website and booking system to say that 3rd party payments will be charged in full at the time the reservation is made or when your cancellation period kicks in.
When guests ask me to just charge the card they made the reservation with, I tell them the banks need me to actually swipe their card for security reasons. I'm making sure the card really belongs to them.
.
I like that about the 3rd party cards will be charged up front. We're just trying to get a spiel together for next weekend when we have 3 more of these 3rd party cards coming in. I will also need the full address & phone number of the owner of the card.
As far as I can tell, these are leisure travelers. In each case it is 2 guests using cards with completely different names than their own.
 
You know, there is a solution for some of these 3rd party purchases. It's called a gift certificate.
 
Here is another reason you may be getting more 3rd party ccc - so many people (myself included) who have had financial issues or had to declare bankruptcy have had their cards canceled, in my case even though I had (1) no balances on the cards (2) was up to date with payments (3) had had the cards in some cases for 10+ years and (4) perfect credit but had no choice because of my morgage .... these co's canceled many of my cards so a LOT of people are left without "their own" cards and have to use someone else's. Thank God my bank, Amex and a few others did not cancel me - so don't always think bad of these customers - I think it is a good idea to run them through at the time of res but it should not necessarily get your back up or raise a red flag. The manual entry fees are slightly higher but not terrible.
 
3rd party cards as I see it....is the possibility that the card or identity might be stolen...
Also if a 3rd party card is used that the reservation and stay is done so within the billing cycle....there is the possibility that the owner of the card disputing the charges.
I would avoid 3rd party cards
 
You know, there is a solution for some of these 3rd party purchases. It's called a gift certificate..
This is exactly how I think it should be handled. With so much identity theft and so much liability on all sides for PCI compliance, etc it just feels wrong to blindly take a 3rd party card.
 
Really WHY ARE ANY OF US TAKING A THIRD PARTY CC? It is illegal, no? I bet the cc companies would agree we should not be charging anyone's cc without the person themselves giving it to us. Why are we taking payment without speaking to/in writing from the owner of the card?
 
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