Originally Posted by mountainmiester

There are two types of merchant accounts.

One allows you to take "card not present" transactions as either online, mail in or phone sales while the other requires you to "swipe" a card in a card present environment.

Many hotels also require a scanned image of a credit card to be on hold if the card being used is being used by someone other than the cardholder. If you call most hotels and tell them you are paying for someone else incidentals, they will ask that you scan and send a copy of that card first.

This is not an uncommon practice but it is in this case. Are you paying with your own card?

If they don't have a Card Not Present account (aka Digital Transactions), then something sounds very fishy.