We stay at IHG hotels on a regular basis. Based on our travel style, it’s the chain that most often meets our needs. I also get several free nights every year from our IHG Premier co-brand credit cards.
However, when I made a recent booking, I saw something I’d never seen before.
Payment Card Authorization
Did you book this room on another person’s behalf?
To allow them to use your payment card during their stay, print this form, fill it out and fax it to the hotel. Please allow 3 days for processing before the check-in date. If there are fewer than 3 days until check-in, please call the hotel for instructions.
This was the first time I’d ever seen a hotel accept that I’d be making a reservation for someone else. In this case, they were willing to let the person stay without me being there and charge things to the room, as long as I FAXED a form to them at least 3 days before the stay.
Of course, I had to check out the form.
If I needed to provide this information to the hotel, I’d have to make a photocopy of my credit card and driver license and fax them, along with this form, to the hotel. In addition, is there such a thing as a legible fax of a photocopied picture?
I’d imagine this is needed for small businesses when the owner is booking rooms for employees and wants to pay for the room with their credit card. Having a system in place to do this makes perfect sense.
Now I’m expecting to walk into the business center and see a fax machine with thermal paper that rolls up into a cylinder as soon as it comes out of the machine.
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3 comments
This is a very old standard SOP for Holiday Inn and I’ve run into it over the years. You can email to a fax so although it’s old fashioned it’s not as bad as it sounds. Usually if the person showing up has their own credit cards they can just use that at check-in for incidentals.
Is there such a thing as a legible fax of a photocopied picture? I worked in desktop publishing for many years and still use faxes from time to time. The answer to your question is: no. If I intended to comply with this antediluvian policy, I would SCAN the credit card and ID, import them into a Word document and use desktop faxing at fine resolution. Either way, this hotel needs to wake up and smell the new millennium.
My insurance company uses a fax machine.