Hotel double charge or authorization hold?

[imrazor]

Last week I stayed at a local hotel while some work was done at my house. I stayed four days, paying each night in advance with my Paypal Debit card. Each day I saw the charge hit my Paypal card. I checked out Friday morning. Then today I saw a charge for all 4 nights hit my card, and a subsequent hit to my balance. Seeing what looked like a double charge, I called the hotel. They explained that last week's charges were some kind of "authorization hold", and that today's charge was the actual debit. According to them the authorization holds from last week should clear off my card in 2 - 7 days. Are they pulling a fast one, or is this really how hotels charge debit cards? Will they actually clear in a week?

[PayPal_Leslie]

Hi imrazor, 

Thanks for reaching out to the Community with your question.

What you describe is what should happen. An authorization is a common method used when validating that credit or debit cards are active and available for online payments.

If you look at your balance before and after the transaction completed, you will see that the balance did not change after the transaction was completed. This is because the temporary hold was removed at the same time the actual charge came through. So we did not pull the transaction from your balance twice. If you still have questions please call or email us by clicking the "Contact" link at the bottom of your PayPal page. We are also available on Facebook at www.facebook.com/paypal or on Twitter at @AskPayPal. 

I hope this information helps!

-Leslie

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