Hotels can do some strange things with credit cards. A few years ago my wife and I had a very pleasant stay and dinner for New Year at a small hotel. The next morning my credit (actually debit) card was, embarrassingly, declined. My wife was willing to pay but the manager wouldn't hear of it. He rummaged in a drawer for a special code, entered that into the POS terminal, and my card was accepted. The correct amount was duly debited from my bank account.
It was only a couple of days later that I realised why the card had been declined. It had expired on Dec 31st, and of course I was paying on Jan 1st. None of us had noticed at the time. Entirely my fault, and everything was above board, but I'm still surprised that a merchant was able to override an expired card.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
