Entered debit card details instead of credit card

Upvote:-4

There should be no way for them to know if you are using a debit or credit card, so as long as you have funds on your debit card you are good.

Upvote:1

There is probably a fee/fine for missing your reservation or something like that. The reason they want a credit card is because they can charge it regardless of whetever you have the funds. That said, unless they reach out to you to solve the problem - you're probably fine.

Upvote:2

In my experience, they sometimes don't do anything with the card number until the morning of the day of arrival, or maybe the day before. Then they run an authorization, and that's when it will fail.

I learned this the hard way a couple years ago when my card number changed between the time I booked and the time they run the authorization. It bounced, and I solved it by chance, when I got a call from them when I was literally in the line for boarding my plane. Luckily I was able to give them the new number, otherwise I would have found myself with no booking on arrival.

Upvote:8

They might mean a MasterCard/Visa/whatever-card allowing β€œcard not present” transactions. They don't necessarily care whether it's technically a credit, debit or prepaid card, as long as it has sufficient funds to process the authorisation. By contrast, many people have debit cards that do not allow online transactions and don't have a number you could use in hotel booking systems. Those would obviously not work, which might explain the language in the terms and conditions.

As an example, Mastercard offers two flavours of debit cards: Maestro and Debit MasterCard. I have one of each and used the Debit MasterCard to book accommodation before, without any issue.

One difference is that a booking accommodation often involves a pre-authorisation and this works differently with a debit card. If you are using a credit card, the bill will be settled later, you haven't really paid anything yet. If you are using the debit card, the money will be withdrawn from your account immediately. Any difference between the authorisation and the final bill will be reimbursed later but you are out of pocket for a while.

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