A light hold on your money

I recently returned from New Zealand. Before leaving, I came up with a confirmed booking and price for a four-day car rental. I have not previously experienced any unwillingness from any merchant to transact a purchase with a Visa debit card (or MasterCard) but at Auckland Airport, Europcar (NZ) slugged me an extra $122 for transacting with a debit as opposed to a credit card.

- J. Thompson, Manly.

This might be down to a miscommunication. According to records provided by Europcar, the amount of $100 was a deposit charged against your Visa card at the start of your hiring. Those records also indicate that this same amount was refunded to your Visa card at the end of the hire period.

Europcar holds this deposit to cover the cost of minor damage to the vehicle during the hire period.

A spokesman for Europcar says it would not have mattered whether you had used a debit or a credit card to pay this, the deposit is still a requirement. It's common practice for a hotel, car-hire operator or even someone from whom you rent a bike for the day to take an imprint of your credit or debit card and put a "hold" or a "block" on funds.These blocked funds will only be released when your final bill is settled.

When you hire a vehicle or check into a hotel, ask if funds are being blocked and by how much and make sure you settle the final bill with the same card you used for the initial transaction or the funds on the original card might not be unblocked until days or weeks later.