a word of warning...

As everyone who works at the front end in the events industry, interpreters often stay away from home for the duration of a conference. Our accomodation is usually (in 99.853% of all cases*) booked and paid by the client. Still, more often than not I have been asked at the hotel reception to leave a credit card for any extras. The insistence on this varies depending on hotel and individual to the point of refusing to check me in.

Let me just explain why I am even talking about this: Although none of the following - touch wood - has happened to me personally, colleagues of mine have told horror stories of having complied with the request to leave their credit cards for incidentals only to find that contrary to contractual agreements, the client did not settle the bill for the interpreters, and the hotel consequently charged everything to the interpreters' credit cards.

The most extreme example was that of a German colleague (well, really she's Irish) working in the US at one particular event. As it happened, the end client (not the agency but the event organiser) defaulted on settling their bill, not just for the delegates' and interpreters' accomodation but meals and meeting room hire, as well. Which the hotel then kindly spread over the credit cards of the interpreters!

I have been a victim of credit card fraud which makes me cautious but I have so far not been wrongly charged by a hotel. Still, I don't give my credit cards at hotels as a matter of principle. As I said, the resistance against a refusal to part with a credit card when I don't expect to have any expenses goes as far as refusing to check me in, so I don't even argue anymore and just say that I don't have one, and that I was not aware of any law that would preclude non-credit card holders from staying in hotel rooms that someone else is paying for in the first place. And my client would not be very impressed if I didn't turn up for work the next day as a consequence of having to go back home. That earns me some funny looks, as if I were not a complete person without a credit card, but it works.

:-)

* This is a rough estimate.