Hotel booking for someone else with my credit card

I've used booking.com several times and am comfortable with the site. I currently face a new situation with a booking, on which I'd like advice.

I've made a booking through booking.com for a 1 night stay in a hotel (big chain) in Frankfurt Germany, for my girlfriend, using my credit card. This is a non refundable booking and the option of `no prepayment, pay at the hotel' was absent. I'm fine with that, as it is a good rate and I won't change or cancel the booking. My girlfriend does not have a credit card, so I'm paying for her. The booking is in her name and I won't be at the hotel with her, as we start our holiday from different countries (she needs to spend a night in Frankfurt before an early morning flight). If she does have a problem at check out, I won't be contactable, as I'd have boarded my flight from another country.

I wrote to the hotel, which confirmed that my card will be charged directly (email copied to my g/f). I'd like to make quite sure she is not asked to pay (except for incidentals) or produce a credit card. I'm ok giving her a copy of my card and PIN, if required. Am I missing something? Is there anything else I need to do.

Best Answer

I used to have a similar problem in the past when I traveled for work. My employer would book and pay for hotels but I’d be asked for a card (or sometimes a deposit - once as high as $500!) for incidentals.

I talked with the people at my employer who book the travel and this was our solution, one that worked with every hotel I used after that for several years:

When booked, the hotel would be contacted to confirm booking and to explain that it was a full charge-back - all incidentals were also to be charged to the same card, and that no card would be presented on check-in. The hotels didn’t have any problem with this. Made check-out incredibly fast too.

Of course my employer had policies and agreements that I’d have to pay for anything not covered by their travel policy, but this had nothing to do with the hotel.