I have seen a lot of hostels only accepting cash, and no CCs/DCs. What are your thoughts about only accepting CCs and DCs as payment (along with TCs)?
It reduces cash-handling mistakes, and would imagine it makes till reconciling much easier. Some cash would be kept in the till for change purposes only.
Another option would be to encourage people to pay using their CCs - if they pay cash, they pay 5-10% extra.
14 years
If everything were electronic, it would be easier for the front desk staff at a large hostel, but there are some issues to consider with credit cards:
14 years
Interesting... I'm not sure if it's the same everywhere, Brazilian Credit Cards don't charge extra when you travel abroad, that's the preferred payment method when I travel :)
Cash only is bad because:
ATMs are not widely available and are not always working
You pay extra fee when withdrawing money abroad (like USD 2,50 plus 2% of the value you have taken)
You run a great risk of getting robbed
Credit cards are great because:
It's simple and you don't pay extra to use abroad
You run a lesser risk of being robbed (You can easily cancel a stolen credit card and take emergency withdrawal should you loose it)
There's no chance the front desk person will steal from you
There's no need to count money from the counter (miscalculations often lead to hours of wasting time recounting the money)
Not having CASH on the counter means the HOSTEL is unlikely to get robbed, specially if you put signs in front that you prefer credit card. This is a huge advantage in some areas like Rio or Porto Alegre in countries like Brazil.
14 years
I have seen a lot of hostels only accepting cash, and no CCs/DCs. What are your thoughts about only accepting CCs and DCs as payment (along with TCs)?
TCs? Is that Traveler's Checks? Does ANY hostel here accept those?
Another option would be to encourage people to pay using their CCs - if they pay cash, they pay 5-10% extra.
I would prefer exactly the opposite - charge an extra fee if they pay with a credit card to cover the fees that the hostel has to pay to process the card payments.
14 years
We accept traveler's checks Brian - but only in US denomination. Have had a couple of phonies get by over the years but only 2 that i know of.
accepting cash only huh? i bet those hostels are not reporting all their income to their version of the IRS!
as brian stated, there are some hefty fees for the hostel to accept foreign cards. for us it's up to 2.8% depending on what country the card is from so for us, it would be to our advantage to offer a cash DISCOUNT as it would save us money...but it's got to be about what's easier for the guest and what's better customer service.
We also used to accept debit cards but that became a big mess functionally.
I'm curious - does anyone accept Pay Pal? I see hostelworld has this as an option.
14 years
One American hostel I worked in accepted TCs, but in the 3 months I was there, only one person paid with TCs. I did ask at the start of my training whether or not they actually accepted TCs (as I saw it as a payment type) and was told they still did, much to my surprise.
As for PayPal, AEE hostel in New Orleans did everything through PayPal. Nice hostel, and the guy running it the time was really nice and had his family there. Nice atmosphere.
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