Your budget for your overseas holiday may collapse at the least convenient moment as a result of foreign car rental companies and hotels asking your credit card company to authorise an amount off your credit card before they actually put through your real bill.
They are allowed to do so and chances are you won't even be told!
Although these amounts will not be charged to your account and you won't have to pay, they will affect your available credit.
Peter Abbott, Assistant General Manager of Standard Bank's card division, says hotels and car rental companies who ask for authorisation of an amount of money are supposed to cancel or reverse the initial authorisation as soon as they've transacted your actual bill. But sometimes they don't.
So depending on whether and how soon the hotels and car rental companies reverse the initial authorisation on your credit card, you may run out of credit at some point perhaps while you're still on holiday.
Abbott says it's important to keep in mind that the additional authorisation will not be charged to your actual account, but it will reflect on your available credit.
He says hotels, to make sure they are safe, sometimes ask for the authorisation of an amount which they expect you may owe at the end of your stay.
Unless the hotel or car rental company cancels the initial authorisation, it will remain on the system of your credit card company for 30 days or until the voucher for the actual bill comes through.
Abbott says people have, on occasion, complained about this practice, but MasterCard International has educated its market and he says it is happening less frequently.
Standard Bank has no experience of South African hotels or car rental companies engaging in initial authorisations to cover themselves.