cash for hotel reservations

Without knowing what websites you are talking about, I can't offer specifics. However, I have stayed at some smaller family-run hotels that do not take credit cards but many, if not most, hotels in Vienna do.

The first step would be to just call the hotel directly and ask what they prefer. A direct bank wire deposit is common here in Europe. It may cost you $5 or so to do it internationally (depends on the bank), but at least they'll get their deposit and you know you have a room reserved.

Kathy, You are being misleading when you advise Sally that it may only cost $5 to make an international wire transfer. That may e true in Europe, but it costs $35 to do so from my bank in the States. That gets silly when the cost of making a reservation is a big percentage of the nightly room rate, as well as being a PITA. I would call the hotel and see if they won't accept payment via some other method such as PayPal. More and more landlords are doing so.

I recently booked a pension in Berlin that only takes payment in cash. However, to reserve the room, they need my CC info. I'm planning to get cash from the ATM at the airport to pay for the Pension.

I wouldn't do business with a hotel that wanted a deposit in cash without contacting by phone. I'm just wary of this. There are so many internet scams out there that want you to send them cash. It's so easy to say you're one thing in an email or have constructed a website that deverts from a valid site. All of these scams are outside of th U.S. so if you are scammed you will have little recourse if any. Another thought was you send the money, what do you have as a receipt?

Nukesafe, I noted that banks do vary. From my Bank of America account in the States, they only charged me $4.95 to wire money to an Austrian hotel in January. All banks are different though.

Kathy, We must be banking at different Bank of America branches, because mine costs a bunch more. I just checked online, and a wire transfer to overseas in USD costs $45. The same transfer in foreign currency is $35. The charge for receiving a wire transfer is $16. I have also found out that the process is a major PITA. In one example, I made a wire transfer to a hotel owner in Dubrovnik. The money went to his bank in Zagreb, where his bank charged a hefty fee to receive it. The landlord did not get the full amount I sent, so I he contacted me, saying he could not confirm the reservation until I gave him the full amount. He finally agreed I could pay him the difference on arrival -- but the whole process was an expensive pain in the a**. In this electronic age we should have a more reasonable method to transfer funds around the world. Bandit banks like BofA are sticking it to their customers by charging for services that cost them essentially nothing. They just click a button, and the money is there. I only maintain my BofA accounts for local use, and use other methods, with reasonable fees, to do things internationally. End of rant.