travelerjan, it has been a long time since I paid cash for a hotel room, so they know they will get paid by my credit card. I have found that whether or not they kept the card for a few hours or overnight or gave it back at once is a function of when I arrive and how many other people arrive around the same time. My experience with this is only in Italy and Croatia, by the way. No one has ever asked for my passport in France except in banks.

"The chief reason they say they need to TAKE and hold them --- and I'm surprised that seasoned travelers have not mentioned it -- is that they want to be assured you will not run out on your bill!!"

Our bill was pre-paid non-refundable, as this was much cheaper, and we had insurance.

TDudette, so I saved them the trouble of copying, why not to be nice to others :)

Dukey, the original post is indeed way old, but a new post topped it to talk about a current issue.

I did get nostalgic seeing the name of the first poster to respond back in 2000.

basically in the crazy countries like Italy you give your passport over normally overnight to tell the police that you are there {no idea what they do with the information I guess someone has to tell the criminals who are in the country), in duller ones like holland they need to photocopy the thing (in front of you) while in sensible ones they don't care who you are as long as you have a credit card that works

For a long time an Italian friend was the night manager of a hotel in Italy. I would sit with him late at night as he copied the passport information onto the local PD form, it was a legal requirement. One time it turned out that a guest of the hotel, thankfully he had checked out the day or so before I checked in, was wanted for various serious crimes. The PD came to the hotel after receiving the completed "Guests Passports Form" to question my friend about the guest. Lots of questions. I have no idea if the former guest was ever arrested or not of course.

I can't remember the last time a hotel kept my passport in France or Spain.When I make reservations online I give my passport nummber and on checking in they just ask to see the passport to verify the number and hand it back to me. I don't understand in this day of computers why any hotel would need keep your passport!I would feel very uneasy without having my passport.

I've never had a hotel keep my passport in any European country, ever. This would be France, Spain, Switzlerland, CR, Poland, Germany and UK that I can think of. If they look at it, they may just write down your number, but it only takes a few seconds. I haven't been to Italy, though, so maybe that is some Italian peculiarity because they are lazy there or something, or stuck in some time warp. I mean, too lazy to just write it down on the spot, so they wait until later. They don't really care if they inconvenience the client. Haven't been to Greece in a long time so don't really remember about that country, but I was with a tour group so it wasn't the same as some individual checking in at the front desk.

I really would not ever want to leave my passport with anyone, so I'm glad I've never encountered that. I do always have several copies with me, so I would give them one if they insisted they could not write it down on the spot. I can see they might do that in Russia, China and countries like that.