Travel Tip: Card Charges and International Trips

This realization hit me just recently, and this is all based from painful experience (one of which is just happening to me right now). This is in regards to weekend check-outs.

Accounting and/or finance offices are usually closed in most places. They are even closed perhaps seen earlier in Asia given that they are ahead sometimes a full working day. As such, initial holds will show up in your credit card but will only really transact first thing Monday during office hours.

So if you know you're checking out the weekend, the best is to either settle your bill in full on Friday before the close of business hours; or settle the partial you can manage and just go on cash for miscellaneous towards check-out.

This way you'll avoid the annoying wait and the preliminary one-day check-in while waiting for the previous transaction to go through. Its not a great feeling to be on tenterhooks your first night at your next hotel destination. :-)

But for now, wish me luck!

*I'd also like to thank and commend the front-desk at the Hyatt Regency Kyoto for their patience in helping me track what's going on. Great hotel, you rock!

Hotel Nikko Kansai (JP)

After checking out of the Hyatt Regency Kyoto, a bus tour, train ride on the Haruka 41, and arriving back at the Kansai Airport, I walked across the bridge to Aero Plaza and stepped into the convenience of the Nikko.

I'll be adding more stories later [ here ]

There isn't any internet in the smoking rooms at the South Tower and your best bet is free wifi at the first-

(1st) floor lobby or walking into the Business Center with your own ethernet cable. I didn't even attempt wifi given that line speeds (shockingly) for a full service hotel in Osaka which has an airport compared to Kyoto which doesn't is:

To be honest this was disappointing given to comparing the Hyatt at 35 Mb/s downstream. And hey, I was willing to pay for bandwidth but never given the option.