pre authorisation
Pre authorisation is a temporary hold a merchant places on your card to reserve funds before the final amount is known and charged.
In plain English
Here is a mistake many people make without even noticing. You book a hotel in Lagos or fill up at a petrol station in London with your card, and two days later you check your balance and gasp because ₦150,000 has vanished, only for the real charge to come in at ₦95,000 a few days after that. You assume the bank has cheated you or the merchant has overcharged you. Nobody has stolen anything. That first figure was never a real charge at all.
That is pre authorisation. It is a hold, not a payment. Hotels do it because they do not know yet if you will order room service or raid the minibar. Petrol stations do it because they do not know how much fuel you will pump before you stop. Car hire firms do it in case you return the car with a scratch or an empty tank. The merchant asks your bank to set aside an amount, sometimes higher than the real cost, just to be sure the money will be there when the actual bill is settled.
The frustrating part is that the held amount is not spendable, even though it has not technically left your account. If your card has a ₦50,000 balance and a hotel places a ₦40,000 hold, you effectively have ₦10,000 to work with until that hold is released or replaced by the real charge, which can take anywhere from a day to about a week depending on the bank.
This trips up a lot of people abroad. A Nigerian travelling to the United Kingdom for the first time might rent a car, see £250 vanish from their available balance, and panic that they have been billed for damage before even driving off the lot. It is simply the deposit hold doing its job.
The lesson is simple. When your balance looks strange after using your card at a hotel, filling station, or car hire desk, do not assume the worst. Check whether the charge says pending. That word is doing a lot of calm work in your banking app.
You check into a hotel in Abuja and your card shows a pre authorisation hold of ₦80,000 for a two night stay. You actually spend ₦55,000 on the room and one meal. The hotel releases the extra ₦25,000 back to your available balance within a few days, though it may not appear as a separate credit, it simply stops being blocked.
Questions people ask
How long does a pre authorisation hold last before it disappears?
It varies by bank and merchant, but it is usually released within one to seven working days. If it lingers much longer than a week, contact your bank, since some holds fail to clear automatically and need a manual push.
Can a pre authorisation hold cause my card to decline other payments?
Yes. Even though the money has not technically left your account, it is locked away from your available balance, so if the hold is large relative to your balance, other transactions can be declined until it clears.
Will I be charged twice, once for the hold and once for the real amount?
No, not under normal circumstances. The hold is simply replaced by the actual charge when it comes through. If you ever see both amounts debited permanently, that is worth querying with your bank immediately.
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