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Here's another scenario. As the good MFers have mentioned here, this is normal, to be expected. It will reconcile within 5 days or less.
One time I was at one of those near the freeway stations. All the car lanes were full, so I decided to avail myself of one of the two RV lanes, since I could pull right in. Being the RV lane, that hold was entered as $500.00 on my card, and of course reduced my buying power by that much. I didn't know it at the time, only later when the card I was using was declined...
You can avoid these things by going inside and asking for a specific dollar amount to be charged to the card.
I got an $80 hold at a Shell station recently. I wonder if that's common among all Shells. It disappeared once the charge posted. Usually, I get a $1 hold that disappears within a few minutes on AMEX. On my other cards, $1 holds tend to disappear within a couple of hours. At worst, they hang around until the end of the business day,.
The worst case scenario happened to me recently. Paying at the pump failed, so I had to pay inside. Because the hold at the pump didn't have a corresponding transaction, it hung around in pending for several days. I believe that was a hold for $100.
@K-in-Boston wrote:
I pity the poor person that uses a debit card at THAT pump. Personally I am okay with the authorizations. I’d really rather not have to go inside and since every station I have been to in at least a decade is prepay, I just want to fill my car up and not have to guess how much to have them run the card for.
So even better, I got an email to link up my Fuel Rewards account with Chase Pay. It was super easy. You open the app, put in the pump number, enter the 3 digit code it gives you at the pump, and after filling my tank it actually authorized the card for the exact amount. I got 25 cents off per gallon (about $3) from Fuel Rewards and nearly 200 URs (a few more dollars).
Same here but I got 35 cents a gallon. Yee-haaaa, giddie-up.
is there any reason why gas stations have such large holds
@Anonymous wrote:is there any reason why gas stations have such large holds
Basically, to make sure you can make the purchase. Similar reasoning why hotels/airlines place holds since the final total isn't known they want to make sure you can pay for the gas before the final purchase is tallied up.
Where I live gas stations aren't even prepay
Pisses me off when I travel..
When I swipe my Amex at the pump at any Shell station, it always is a $95 charge until a couple days later. I don't know if it is Shell's policy or or varies by store. Not sure what other gas stations charge for a preauthorization.