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I've used booking.com several times and am comfortable with the site. I currently face a new situation with a booking, on which I'd like advice.

I've made a booking through booking.com for a 1 night stay in a hotel (big chain) in Frankfurt Germany, for my girlfriend, using my credit card. This is a non refundable booking and the option of `no prepayment, pay at the hotel' was absent. I'm fine with that, as it is a good rate and I won't change or cancel the booking. My girlfriend does not have a credit card, so I'm paying for her. The booking is in her name and I won't be at the hotel with her, as we start our holiday from different countries (she needs to spend a night in Frankfurt before an early morning flight). If she does have a problem at check out, I won't be contactable, as I'd have boarded my flight from another country.

I wrote to the hotel, which confirmed that my card will be charged directly (email copied to my g/f). I'd like to make quite sure she is not asked to pay (except for incidentals) or produce a credit card. I'm ok giving her a copy of my card and PIN, if required. Am I missing something? Is there anything else I need to do.

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  • Have you told the hotel that it's your card but paying for her room (girlfriend different cities, she hasn't got card herself, etc.) and you won't be present with the card itself? If they ask for the card to confirm and she can't produce, being denied the keys is probably the least bad outcome.
    – Nij
    Commented Feb 6, 2018 at 9:54
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    Many hotels will ask for a credit card at check-in time to cover for incidentals. She doesn't have any card at all? It does not need to be a credit card per se, debit cards are fine as long as they are in one of the large networks. Note that a (paper) copy of a card + PIN is useless. The PIN is verified by the chip on the card.
    – jcaron
    Commented Feb 6, 2018 at 11:02
  • I have told the hotel that my card is paying for the room and she should not be charged, which the hotel has apparently agreed (they wrote back saying my card will directly be charged). She does have ID (the room is booked in her name) and a debit card from a leading German bank.
    – Deans
    Commented Feb 6, 2018 at 15:10
  • Not the same question but actually the same issue, worth reading: travel.stackexchange.com/questions/106688/…
    – Itai
    Commented Feb 6, 2018 at 16:32
  • Make sure your girlfriend is able to produce the booking details and email on request. It is quite easy for things like an email to become 'detached' from the booking when the check-in clerk is expecting the more usual customer situation - one where the name of the person in front of them is the same as the person who booked and paid for the room.
    – Nick
    Commented Feb 6, 2018 at 21:28

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I used to have a similar problem in the past when I traveled for work. My employer would book and pay for hotels but I’d be asked for a card (or sometimes a deposit - once as high as $500!) for incidentals.

I talked with the people at my employer who book the travel and this was our solution, one that worked with every hotel I used after that for several years:

When booked, the hotel would be contacted to confirm booking and to explain that it was a full charge-back - all incidentals were also to be charged to the same card, and that no card would be presented on check-in. The hotels didn’t have any problem with this. Made check-out incredibly fast too.

Of course my employer had policies and agreements that I’d have to pay for anything not covered by their travel policy, but this had nothing to do with the hotel.

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