Sometimes there are doubts whether it will be possible to organize a trip, and the price of the hotel was tempting. In such cases, it will be useful to know how to book a hotel without a credit card and prepayment. However, this method of armor has its own pitfalls. In this article, I have collected all the ways to pre-book without paying on different services. Represented step by step instructions help you book a hotel room without any hassle.
There are several situations in which it may be useful to book a hotel without payment:
- For the visa
The package includes proof of residence. Most tourists book hotels with free cancellation just for a visa, and after receiving it, they choose a hotel more carefully for their stay. You can choose a hotel right away, but without a visa it is better not to pay for it. Even if you have already received a Schengen visa before, the consulate may decide not in your favor. It is better not to risk money, especially when there is such an opportunity.
- Fuzzy plans
For example, you are going on vacation, but at work they may ask you to reschedule the vacation dates. Or you are planning a trip to several cities and admit the possibility of changing the route. For example, once on New Year We didn't have clear plans. One of the options was to visit Kaliningrad. I booked a hotel there, but cheap flights did not come across. But we managed to get profitable tickets to Vienna. I canceled the hotel in Kaliningrad, and we quietly flew to Europe.
- Lack of funds
Let's say you found good hotel, which suits you in all respects, but you cannot pay for it now. In order not to miss the advantageous offer, you book it without payment.
Why do you need a card number when booking a hotel?
When booking hotels, the following situation may arise:
- No prepayment hotel with free cancellation, but credit card details must be entered;
- Booking a room is possible without entering data bank card. In this case, of course, the hotel will not be able to charge you any advance payment.
In the first case, when booking a hotel, the electronic system requires you to enter bank card details. But it is one thing if, according to the terms of the booking, payment must go through immediately, and quite another if payment is possible on the day of settlement. A natural question arises: why does the hotel require credit card details if the hotel reservation is without payment?
Just imagine, the hotel sells its rooms in advance and is interested in ideally finding residents for each room. If a tourist cancels their reservation in advance, the hotel will be able to find other guests in these rooms using booking systems, but if the cancellation occurs the day before, then the chances of renting a room and making a profit will be much less. Therefore, many hotels set free cancellation of the reservation in the period of 3-7 days before the date of arrival. Cancellations later may incur a penalty. Most often it is equal to the day of residence. To deduct this amount, a bank card number is required.
Therefore, before booking a particular hotel, carefully read all the conditions so as not to get extra money if you need to cancel your booking.
In some cases, the hotel may block the full cost of the stay on the card. The hotel did not write off this money, but you will not be able to use it either. Sometimes it happens even worse: you come on vacation, and you only have a blocked amount of funds to pay for the hotel and not a ruble more. Even if the hotel unblocks them, the money is not returned immediately. In some cases, it turns out to write off a blocked amount for accommodation, and in some not. You need to be prepared for the worst situation in case of blocking.
.In the second case, it is possible to book a room without entering bank card details. Let's consider it in more detail.
How to book a hotel without a credit card and prepayment
Booking a hotel without entering credit card information may be required:
- Guaranteed no blocking of the amount of accommodation on the card. This is beneficial if you have a debit card and do not have extra funds.
- Your credit card is about to expire.
- You don't have a bank card.
- You are afraid to enter card data via the Internet.
Unfortunately, not all hotels provide such a booking. However, you can find such options both through booking systems and through hotel aggregators. Let's see how to make such a reservation on different sites.
Booking a hotel without paying through booking.com
booking.com is one of the most popular booking systems. It is convenient that the site has a special filter that helps sort hotels in the desired city in accordance with our requirements. Most importantly, there are three types of filters on the booking site:
- Free cancellation (card details may be required, but the reservation can be canceled without penalty until a certain date);
- Booking without a credit card (just our option, credit card details are not required);
- No prepayment (no prepayment required).
We will make a hotel reservation without entering credit card data step by step.
I took the city of Kazan for a sample. There were 1017 accommodation options.
The second way is more difficult. Booking is now really working with hotels in terms of the availability of booking without a credit card. As we have seen, there are many options for such a plan. If you liked some hotel, but without the details of the reservation card, look at the options nearby. For example, the Crystal Hotel does not provide for booking without a credit card.
Book a hotel without a card through booking.com
Other booking systems (island, agoda) work similarly.
Book a hotel without a card through Ostrovok
Book a hotel without a card through Agoda
Booking a hotel without paying through the hotellok aggregator
Through hotel search engines, we use similar filters to sort hotels. Aggregators are convenient in that they show the options found in several booking systems at once (including the most popular ones - booking, islet, agoda, etc.). In this way, you can quickly find hotels with a favorable room rate and the possibility of booking without a bank card. I'll tell you step by step how to conduct such a search in the hotellook.
Hotellook shows hotels if the possibility of booking without a card is available in at least one of the booking systems. Thus, it turns out to collect in one place all available housing options with this parameter.
After searching for hotels, go to the hotel you like and look for the phrase "without a bank card." For example, in the Cat on the Roof hostel I chose, only booking offers a reservation without a card, while the booking systems for the island and the associated travel do not have such an opportunity. In other hotels it may be the other way around. You need to be careful not to accidentally book another option.
Book a hotel without a bank card and prepayment on hotellok
If you have booked hotels without using a bank card, share your experience in the comments
Similar posts
.sp-force-hide ( display: none;).sp-form ( display: block; background: rgba(224, 222, 221, 1); padding: 15px; width: 760px; max-width: 100%; border -radius: 8px; -moz-border-radius: 8px; -webkit-border-radius: 8px; border-color: #dddddd; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; font-family: Arial, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: center; background-size: auto;).sp-form input ( display: inline-block; opacity: 1; visibility: visible;). sp-form .sp-form-fields-wrapper ( margin: 0 auto; width: 730px;).sp-form .sp-form-control ( background: #ffffff; border-color: #cccccc; border-style: solid ; border-width: 1px; font-size: 15px; padding-left: 8.75px; padding-right: 8.75px; border-radius: 4px; -moz-border-radius: 4px; -webkit-border-radius: 4px ;height: 35px;width: 100%;).sp-form .sp-field label ( color: #444444; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-weight: bold;).sp-form . sp-button ( border-radius: 4px; -moz-border-radius: 4px; -webkit-borde r-radius: 4px background-color: #ff6500; color: #ffffff; width: auto; font-weight: 700 font-style: normal font-family: Arial, sans-serif; box-shadow: none -moz-box-shadow: none; -webkit-box-shadow: none;).sp-form .sp-button-container ( text-align: left;)Criticism fell upon me, saying that it was necessary to call the call center, where they solve all problems.
And just a few days later I had a problem again.
I tried to book a hotel in Warsaw, when booking I noticed that this was the last free room of this category.
I press "Book" and an inscription pops up on the screen informing me that someone is ahead of me and there are no more available rooms of this category and I am offered to start a new search.
After some time, I decided to fill in the address in the navigator and go back to Booking and see there that I have two reservations. It turns out the first hotel is also booked. And so I have two active bookings for the same date.
Hotel Rialto, which I was denied booking due to lack of available rooms, and Hotel Bristol, which I booked next.
Without delay, I call the Booking support service and ask to solve this problem. I tell you how it was, they recommend me to cancel the reservation at the Bristol Hotel, as it was the second reservation. I am trying to explain that I did not make the first reservation, or rather I tried to make it, but was refused by the system and it would be more logical to cancel what was booked by mistake, without my knowledge.
To this, the operator Dmitry assures me that there were no failures in the system. Here I understand that I got into a stupid situation, and later I find out that the Rialto Hotel (which was booked by mistake) has already deducted the entire amount from me and I call the support service again.
Dmitry tells me that if the money has already been debited, then the chances of returning it are 0 and recommends blocking the card in order to avoid debiting from the Bristol Hotel. After Dmitry asks for time to contact the Bristol Hotel and ask them to do a free cancellation. After a while, I find out that I succeeded in canceling, but the cancellation penalty will be 100%, and if I do not reset the card, then 35,000 rubles will be written off from me.
Of course, I reset the card and ask that they try to solve my problem in a less radical way, since logically I just throw the hotel with money and exactly the hotel that I booked myself.
Upon arrival at the Rialto Hotel, we are informed that the rooms of the booked category are over, but they are ready to upgrade to a premium suite. This once again confirms the fact that the reservation was made by a system error.
Upon arrival in Moscow, attempts are made to debit money from my empty card, the amount of 35,000 rubles, a fine for canceling a reservation at the Bristol Hotel, which I have not been to.
I call Booking again and ask to solve this problem, because I am waiting for a transfer on the card and which is more than the amount of the fine. Booking promises to call me back and disappear. I didn't hear them again.
I go to Sberbank and reissue the card.
I don't know yet if the Bristol Hotel will continue to pursue me to write off the fine. But now I know for sure that Booking is completely unprepared to solve customer problems, especially those that occurred due to a failure in the application.
It's good that the card is debit and without an overdraft, otherwise I would not have been able to avoid being charged. So think before you link credit cards. And when you link debit cards, try not to keep large amounts of money on them, as there are failures. And then it will be difficult for you to prove something.
And how would you solve this problem, faced with something similar?
As a result, I unlinked all the cards from the booking and I’m not sure that by linking a new one, they won’t try to write off the fine for canceling the reservation from me again. I will use the Agoda application for now, although it also belongs to Booking.
Now all the insides are on my Telegram channel
Add...
LiveJournal / Facebook / Twitter / VK / OK / Instagram / YouTube /
This journal is a personal diary containing the private opinions of the author. In accordance with Article 29 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, each person can have his own point of view regarding its textual, graphic, audio and video content, as well as express it in any format. The journal does not have a license from the Ministry of Culture and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation and is not a mass media, and, therefore, the author does not guarantee the provision of reliable, unbiased and meaningful information. The information contained in this diary, as well as the comments of the author of this diary in other diaries, do not have any legal meaning and cannot be used in the course of legal proceedings. The author of the journal is not responsible for the content of comments to his entries.
Tell your friends or post it on your blog.
Booking.com is a service for booking hotels, apartments and other accommodation via the Internet.
Before the advent of the Internet and Booking.com, a similar service was provided by the newspaper Iz Hand V Handi:
In the newspaper, for money, it was possible to advertise “I will rent an apartment”, while the apartment itself did not belong to the newspaper.
I hope now the principle of Booking is clear.
Hotels on Booking - set the price for the room, confirm or cancel the reservation, interact with the client through feedback, set the conditions for the reservation.
Clients on Booking - choose a hotel according to their wishes and budget, interact with the hotel through feedback, write reviews about hotels.
This is such a service that connects the buyer and the seller.
And of course, it is more convenient and safer than the newspaper service or the grandmother near the station.
Why does Booking.com need your card details?
Vasya decided to rent an apartment and advertised on the site.
Petya turned to him and wrote that he wanted to rent an apartment.
Vasya agreed and refused Olya, Kolya, Sasha who applied later.
On the agreed day of the start of renting an apartment, Petya scratched his butt and decided not to rent it.
So Vasya received instead of money for renting an apartment - a donut hole.
The next time, publishing an advertisement for renting an apartment, he set the conditions for canceling the reservation (so as not to stay with a hole again): cancellation 48 hours in advance - ok, 24 hours in advance - a fine, no arrival - a fine.
And so that the slob Petya did not escape responsibility, he asked for his card details, so that in case of violation of the agreement, he would receive a fine from Petya.
3) The third way: when booking, at the final stage - use the “Pay Now” option.
Then Booking itself processes your card and transfers not your card details, but money to the hotel:
4) Fourth way: I use it and can recommend this method.
You need to have several bank accounts and use the bank's mobile application.
On the current account of the card (before the trip), transfer the required amount of money from another account - for example, 200 euros.
As needed, throw firewood into the firebox (money into the account), and at the end of the trip, reset the account to which the card is linked, transferring the balance from it to another account in the same bank.
I have a dozen accounts in one bank: there are those on which money is kept and Aeroflot-Bonus miles are dripped to me for this, there are just piggy banks, there are deposit ones.
And the operation to transfer money from one account to another takes me 5 seconds.
5) The fifth way is more stationary: to have a special card for online shopping.
It is called so - a virtual card or a card for shopping on the Internet.
Maintenance of this card is free and you can create it for 50 rubles in the Internet bank, linking it to your current account.
I have never used this method, but many people use and praise it.
If money was debited from the card without your knowledge
If this is a purchase of a golden iPhone in Bangladesh, then the first step is to block the card and challenge the transaction through a mobile bank client.
If this is an operation in which you suspect an unscrupulous hotel, help you.
How to use Booking.com
That's all - if it helped: share with your neighbors and those who suffer in social networks.
5 /5 (103 )Oksana wanted to book a hotel room through an online booking site. Even though no prepayment was required, a debit or credit card number and the owner's name were required to secure the reservation. Can funds be debited from the card without the consent of the client?
Irina Ryabovol, official representative of the Momondo.ru ticket search service in Russia: “Providing your card details when booking a hotel, even if no prepayment is required, is a common international practice. So the client guarantees his intention to stay at the booked hotel. In the event that he suddenly does not check in on the designated day or decides to cancel the order, the hotel may charge the client’s card a penalty for the first day or for the entire stay, depending on the established rules.
A couple of years ago, the system for transferring guest card data to hotels was not secure enough on most sites. That is, in fact, hotel employees received open access to customer payment data. However, today this problem has already been solved - large booking sites transmit this information using a closed protocol, so you should not be afraid of unauthorized charges. Also, there are still hotels, mostly small guesthouses and apartments, that do not require a guarantee in the form of credit card details. Please read the terms and conditions carefully before making a booking.
In unstable economic times, it is better to pay for overseas hotels at the time of booking. Otherwise, if the exchange rate rises, you will be unpleasantly surprised at the time of check-in new value for accommodation in rubles. In all foreign hotels, the calculation takes place in local currency, however, in booking systems, the price is converted into rubles and can be duplicated in euros / dollars.
If you selected the option when booking your hotel « pay immediately » , then the amount indicated in rubles will be debited from you. If you decide to pay for the hotel on the spot, then there may be several options: paying in cash in local currency or in euros / dollars, or paying with a Russian bank card (respectively, in rubles). Naturally, if the rate jumped, then the cost of living in rubles will increase. Of course, the local currency can behave differently and also react sharply to changes in the exchange rates of major currencies, but this already depends purely on the country of travel. Theoretically, there is another option for debiting - from the currency account of a Russian bank card, however, in this case, the money is first converted from the local currency of the hotel to the currencies of the payment system, then to the currency of the bank and then back to the currency of the client's account » .
Veronika Vasilyeva, Head of the Territorial Directorate of the Retail Business of URALSIB Bank: “By agreement with specific hotels, the site offers conditions for booking and cancellation of bookings. Typically, the client is given the right to cancel the reservation for free a few days before arrival, and in case of a later cancellation of the reservation, penalties are provided, since in this case the hotel may be without income. Here, in order to collect such a fine, the site requires you to enter data about the card from which amounts can be debited. This protects hotels from unscrupulous customers who can book a hotel just in case, and then not arrive and cancel the reservation on time. This is a common practice of booking systems and payment systems understand this practice, such transactions cannot be disputed (up to the cost of a room for one day).
Transactions from arbitrary sites can be protested if they are not confirmed by a code using Verified by Visa or MasterCode technologies. In the case of booking hotels, the rules of payment systems provide for situations when a client booked a room but did not show up, it is allowed to write off an amount equal to the cost of a room per day without the client's consent.
If you often make purchases over the Internet, I recommend that you remember the basic safety rules:
- Pay for such purchases only from a personal computer on which modern anti-virus programs are installed.
- Do not save personal data and bank card data if you pay through a computer at work or at a party. It is better to use a special card for online payments, on the account of which you can keep the minimum necessary funds. Remember that the site page on which the card details are entered must use the https secure connection protocol. If this is not the case, then it is better to refuse to pay on such a site. Many leading banks today have a system of protection against fraudulent transactions, for example, a digital password sent in SMS messages to a client's number, or secret codes on a password card.
- I also recommend at least once a month to monitor transactions that took place on the card through the Internet bank, at the bank branch or at least by calling the bank's call center, and in case of loss or detection of fraudulent transactions on the card, immediately block it » .
Sergey Gavryushkin, Managing Partner at Gavryushkin & Partners Law Firm: “Recently, booking air tickets and hotels through online services has become increasingly popular among tourists. There are many benefits to booking online. Firstly, it is fast, and secondly, the prices are really lower than those of the tour operators themselves. Usually, all tourists are concerned about the need to enter bank card details: is it safe to provide bank card details to third parties, and why provide such information, especially if prepayment is not required?
In most European countries, the following booking system is adopted: no prepayment, and if the tourist refuses the room, the booking can be canceled without any financial loss. But in case of untimely cancellation of the room (as a rule, in a few hours) - payment for the first day of residence. From the moment of booking, the tourist is financially responsible to the hotel. In the process of ordering a room, the tourist is provided with full information about the rules of residence in a particular hotel. The booking procedure is completed with a paragraph on the consent of the tourist with the rules of the hotel, in which the tourist puts a mark on his agreement with them. The tourist signs an agreement with the hotel, on the basis of which the hotel has the full right to withhold funds in case of no-show or late cancellation of the reservation, depending on the policy of the hotel.
Providing bank card details is a guarantee that the tourist will come to this hotel. The hotel needs guarantees, as many tourists are not serious about booking, for example, they book a room and do not come, as a result, the hotel is idle and loses money. This is how the scheme of financial obligations between the hotel and the guest as a whole, adopted all over the world, looks like.
There are always risks. Their degree depends on the protection of the computer from viruses, on how verified the site is. If a tourist has any concerns when providing bank card details to a hotel, then there is no point in booking hotels through online services. In addition, any bank employee, waiter, seller can write off or remember bank card details. It's exactly the same risk.
To minimize risks, you can give tourists a few simple tips: book tickets only on trusted sites; to pay, book and purchase via the Internet, create a separate card, which contains only the amount needed for the purchase; activate the service of SMS-notification about transactions carried out on the card » .
Update from 12/02/19. The scheme with the card generator no longer works - Booking has learned to identify the card for reality at the moment it is attached to the account or simply when indicated in the payment. But! The method with virtual cards still works.
Data credit cards are no longer needed and your money is 100% safe on any booking or cancellation.
In September 2012, I wrote the first article in the How to book a hotel on Booking series, which aroused the most keen interest (today it has been read almost 300 thousand times) and remains relevant to this day. It talked about how to protect yourself from losing funds on your card accounts when canceling a booking on Booking. In short, it was recommended to use one-time virtual cards with a minimum balance of funds for booking, so that, firstly, you would not be charged the cost of living before you check in, and, secondly, this manipulation allows you to save money when cancellation of the reservation, especially when it is paid and you face a fine.
VISA 16 digits: |
VISA 13 digits: |
Mastercard: |
American Express: |
Discover: |
Diner Club: |
Voyager |
But technology does not stand still.
About a year ago, I found information on the foreign Internet that it is not at all necessary to use your own credit cards to reserve purchases or book online, moreover, virtual cards are not needed for this. Now it is enough to use a special program code that will generate a credit card number for you.
During the year, I tested the effectiveness of this system on various booking services for hotels, apartments and apartments (Booking, Agoda, airbnb, etc.) and I can say with confidence that the method works 100%.
The bottom line is that each payment system (VISA, MasterCard, etc.) has certain algorithms for constructing a card number. It is this number that is validated in the payment system to determine whether such a card can be issued within a certain payment system, for example, VISA. The remaining block of data - the validity period of the card, the name / surname of the holder and the CVV code confirming the transaction, are checked only at the time of the direct payment, which means that they have no value during the booking procedure.
This is the principle of using this method, which will allow you to book any hotels, apartments, apartments, hostels and other accommodation on the network on any service (agoda, etc.) from now on without using your own credit / debit card.
There is only one condition for such a booking - you must make a booking, services that require instant payment (for example, airbnb) will not accept a program-generated card code, since it has never been in the payment card system in reality.
And then everything is simple. At the beginning of the article, you already noticed the names of payment systems, each of which has its own card number. On every page refresh the data is updated and will be generated new number cards.
When making another booking, you simply take the generated VISA, MasterCard or other required payment system number from this article and enter it in the payment data section. The rest of the data is filled in arbitrarily - you can specify any name / surname of the cardholder, any card validity period within five years from the date on which you use this card and any CVV code.
This is how it looks when booking a hotel on Booking.
The generated VISA credit card is entered here and the rest of the values are added arbitrarily. And, voila, the booking is successfully completed, and my money is completely safe - because I did not leave any data in the system at all real cards or accounts. In addition, you can save the generated card to your profile and continue to use it for future bookings. And if at some point a hotel validates the card in an attempt to withdraw money and reports that it is not valid - you just generate a new card and enter it into the system again - this is much faster and easier than issuing virtual card and a hundred times safer than using a real credit card.
You can be sure that your booking is confirmed to the highest standards using a "valid" card number, but with you will never be charged until you decide for yourself that it is worth paying for this accommodation. In addition, you will not lose money if you suddenly forget to cancel the reservation, and it will turn out to be with penalties, because if you cancel such a reservation, it will simply be impossible to collect a fine, since the system does not contain real payment data.
It is worth noting that the last point (cancellation with a penalty) I personally recommend not to abuse. If you don't want to go to a particular hotel, consider canceling your booking so that the hotel can sell the room. After all, someone may need it more, and the hotel will not lose money due to idle rooms, which means it will not have a reason to raise prices for other rooms to compensate for losses.
Otherwise, I recommend the method for use. In our information age, when personal data is regularly "leaked" to the network, using a card number generator is a great way to protect your funds from any encroachment. Plus, it's fast and convenient.
