Can a hotel charge my credit card for damage I didn’t cause?
Here’s what to do if your credit card is charged after you’ve left a hotel.
4 min read
Sep 11, 2025
Poonkulali Thangavelu
Former Senior Writer, Credit cards
EXPERTISE
- Consumer law
- Monetary policy
- Debt management
- Mortgages
- Managing investments
EDUCATION
- Master of Arts (Journalism) from University of Mississippi, Oxford
- Master of Business Administration from BIM, Trichy, India
- Bachelor of Arts (Economics) from Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, India
Poonkulali Thangavelu is a senior writer at Bankrate, addressing credit card-related consumer protection and debt management issues. She believes that making good financial decisions enables people to get more out of life and is happy to contribute to others’ financial education. She uses credit cards extensively and sees them as a good financial resource to draw on — if used wisely.
Poonka has extensive journalism experience covering personal finance and business topics. She draws on her financial education and expertise and likes to simplify the subject matter to enable readers to make good decisions. While covering the mortgage market for National Mortgage News, she curated and edited a newsletter targeting the home-equity lending niche of the mortgage industry. In this role, she cautioned that home prices were getting out of hand in the period leading up to the 2006 housing market crash.
She’s contributed to multiple business and consumer-oriented outlets, and her work has been picked up by various national publishers such as the San Francisco Gate, Chicago Tribune and McGraw Hill, along with syndication on Fidelity, MSN, Nasdaq, Yahoo! and others. Her career includes a stint doing consumer market research for global advertising agency Ogilvy as well as experience as an equity analyst and writer.
Find Poonkulali beyond Bankrate
- Can a bank cancel my dead parent’s credit card if I have power of attorney? (MSN)
- Can a bank seize funds from my checking for my credit card payment? (Yahoo! Finance)
Poonkulali wants you to know
It’s great to earn credit card rewards, but don’t go overboard with your spending in order to hit a welcome bonus or bonus category cap. I like the Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express since it offers cash back on groceries, which I buy a few times each month anyway. The cash back rewards even offset the annual fee, so I find it worthwhile.
Poonkulali's recommended readings
Making good financial decisions enables people to get more out of life, and I’m happy to contribute to that endeavor.
— Poonkulali Thangavelu
Poonkulali's latest articles
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Average cost of Valentine’s day: 2023 statistics
Here’s how much people are planning on spending on their dates this Valentine’s Day.
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Bitstamp review 2023
If you anticipate that you’ll only be lightly trading crypto, you may want to look elsewhere.
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6 scholarships for women returning to college
Adult learners can access funds for tuition, supplies and even child care.
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America’s best places to live in 2023
Find out the best places to live and work in 2023.
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10 ways to meet your savings resolutions in 2023
Make 2023 the year you get serious about saving for your goals with these 10 tips.
5 min read Jan 24, 2023
