There are consumers that do not feel comfortable entering their credit card online when making a reservation at a hotel, and I can understand that. I am not one of those consumers though and I trust that when I enter my credit card details they are going to be sent to the hotel securely.

Lack of credit and debit card security when booking hotels online

Lack of card security

Well, that was until I received an email from a consumer who checked in at a small independent hotel in London that he had booked through a third-party hotel booking website. While he was filling in the usual form with address, passport number, he noticed they had handwritten on the reservation printout his credit card number, expiry date and more worryingly his CVC code.

To have this written down, in such an insecure manner is frightening.

Concerns over card safety

I have never thought about this until now, but when I enter my debit or credit details to reserve the hotel room does the third-party booking site store these details, and how secure are they? How long are the details kept for? Does the booking site have to adhere to any security standards?

As a consumer, I enter my credit or debit card details at booking time thinking that the electronic transaction is safe and that my card would not be billed anyway. I pay directly to the hotel with my card on an electronic terminal by entering my PIN code safely.

Open gateway to fraud

What concerns me more is that I always check that I am entering my details on a secure server (begins with https://) and I check to make sure that there is a padlock in the bottom of my browser but that means nothing if the hotel search website is going to send the details insecure.

If the hotel booking website transfers all the credit and debit card data to any hotel and any human staff at the hotel can write down the details and then go shopping online. It would be interesting to hear from hotels and hotel booking sites because this is worrying as a consumer.

I am interested to hear of any similar stories with hotel security on credit and debit cards.