For my shopping for my trip, I’m mulling over a couple of ideas. I’ll have teenagers. I’m giving each of them $200 for the trip to blow on whatever shirts or hats or chotchkies they want. It’s important to me (and my sanity) to put the responsibility on them to decide what to buy. I don’t want to give them cash, but I’m not sure the best alternative. I could:
A) Give them a Visa gift card. But are minors allowed to use those in stores? Would an ID be expected?
B) Give them a Disney gift card (if there is such a thing). But then unspent money would be lost.
C) Is it possible to load shopping money onto their Magic Bands, and is unspent money recoverable?
Also, is $200 a reasonable number, or has inflation gotten to the point that $200 would buy them a T-shirt and a stick of gum?
First, $200 is fine
Second, Visa gift card does not require ID but they do usually need to know how much is on the card at each transaction.
Third, I believe you can register Disney gift cards so as to protect them in the event of loss.
You could pre-pay some dollars at hotel concierge onto magic bands, but no way of limiting any one amount to any one band. It would be applied to your total account balance.
It is absolutely possible to set a limit on any magic band. You can do this at the front desk. Just tell them what the limit is and they will set it up for you.
We did this for our boys on our last couple of trips. The last time they both had the same limit, but before that the younger one had a fairly low limit, for ice creams and snacks; we just wanted to make sure he thought about any souvenirs before he bought them!
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Well that’s new. That has not been possible in the past.
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Our last trip was Christmas 2016 but before that was 2012. They did it for us then too, although it wasn’t magic bands obviously, it was the key to the world cards.
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Magic Bands seems like the best idea. I’m not that worried about them underspending. I know my kids well enough to know of I give them a mile, they will doggedly find a way to use all 5,280 feet. If they spent $199.75, they would find a gumball machine and put a quarter in it. God forbid we consider saving 
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If you decide to go with the Disney gift cards, watch for deals at retailers where you can buy them for a discount. I think Target used to have the 5% off and there may be others. It’s worth researching anyway.
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Yes, you can still get them in-store at Target using your RedCard and get 5% off. I did it last week.
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