When you check in to a hotel or motel and present a credit card, the hotel will obtain an authorization for the estimated amount due upon departure and your bank 'holds' this amount awaiting a matching charge. This prevents you from overspending your limit (if you are too close to it) which can be very costly because banks can change your interest rate on the whole balance due to your exceeding your credit limit. The reason hotels get authorization estimates and that cards are not just pre-charged is that the guest may leave earlier or later or have other charges accrued, rendering the first estimate inaccurate.
Occasionally, a guest decides to pay by cash or another credit card and when they check their credit or debit balances days later, are shocked when they see what appears to be a 'charge' for the hotel stay also. This is not in fact a charge, it is YOUR bank reserving the amount obtained in the authorization process and 'reserving' it for the hotel. This 'charge' will disappear within 10 days, usually no more than 14 and your credit limit increases by the amount being 'held'. You will probably not be able to use that card until the bank removes the hold on that amount if you are close to your credit line limit. If you are not close to your limit, it will not matter.
The same thing happens when you rent a car. Even if the estimated charge is only $110.00 for a 2 day rental, almost ALL car rental companies obtain a hold of up to $500 (in casing you decide to keep the car for a week or damage it.) Again, this comes out of your credit limit but is NOT a charge made by the rental company. Usually, neither they nor hotels can 'reverse' these holds - it is function of your bank and up to the bank to return that amount to your credit line when they do not have a matching charge arrive from the business. Many bank employees will not tell you this and they tell you to contact the business that obtained the hold to reverse it. Again though, the hotel never charged the amount to start with so there is nothing they can return to your credit limit. Some business MAY have sophisticated automated systems where holds can be released but I am not aware of any. I would be surprised if it wasn't already possible but there are still too many small motels that cannot afford the sophisticated systems so this inconvenience may be here in some form for years.
The best way to avoid this is only present the card you are sure you will use upon check out. Or have sufficient credit available that it doesn't matter whether there is a hold or not. Be especially careful about using debit cards too, as this will come out of available cash for 7-14 days. Car rental companies generally require a credit card to rent a car and won't take a debit card unless you also have a credit card because they do not want to hold up to $500 from a checking account and in many cases cannot GET an authorization for $500 anyway.
Keep in mind that sometimes you pay a credit card bill upon departure for a vacation and try to use the card within days only to have the bank deny the authorization because your payment has not been credited and the authorization would put you over the limit. It is frustrating to know you can't use the money in the bank OR the credit card too because of the in-transit payment, so it pays in these cases to have MORE than one credit source.
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