Any Experiences with Disney's new Credit Card Authorization Changes Yet?

If I remember right, last month Disney started putting $100 incremental authorization holds on a person’s credit card for estimated incidental expenses, in addition to any balance due on the reservation if you are staying at a WDW resort. I’m curious how that actually worked out for anyone who stayed at a WDW resort since then and used their credit card to pay for their expenses. In the past I normally used my MB to pay for everything while on the property, but took gift cards or my Disney Rewards card to the front desk during our stay to pay down the bill before my credit card was charged when I checked out.

https://touringplans.com/blog/2019/01/15/walt-disney-world-resort-hotels-change-credit-card-authorization-policy/

It will work in exactly the same way except there’s an extra $100 held. You can still pay it off with gift cards and the $100 isn’t charged, they will release the hold after your stay.

I have seen one or two reports of cards being charged earlier than they were expecting. So it isn’t quite as simple as it maybe appears.

However, most people probably won’t report if they didn’t notice anything amiss, so this thread is a good idea to encourage people who have had a recent stay to report their experience.

Previously, there was no hold put on a card. And some card providers don’t release a hold for up to 7 days after it is lifted, so it could have a post-trip effect, especially those who use a debit card.

Interesting, there haven’t been any reports of that on chat. It’s obviously not the biggest sample size but there have been a lot of people there since this was introduced. Honestly I don’t think I’d notice though.

I am interested in this as well. It went into effect right after my trip. I am following this on other boards too.

I’m asking for several reasons. I too am picking up on other sites where charges have actually gone thru before checkout. Don’t know if that was deliberate, or an accident. We stayed at the BC for 4 nights last December and had exactly that happen to us. A small charge accidently went thru on day two. I know what Disney announced. What I don’t know yet is how they are REALLY administering it … which I’d kind of like to REALLY know before going back. We have another trip planned this fall and I don’t want to get stuck with unused gift cards if Disney processes credit card charges before check out. Thanks

2 Likes

When we were there in December (well before the new authorization rule), I went to the front desk the night before our check out date to pay with gift cards and they had already run all of the charges to the credit card. However, the cast member simply reversed the charges for the amount of my gift card and let me pay with the gift card.

3 Likes

Before this change, I’ve had charges done before I checked out. I found out that there is a limit on how much you can have charged to your room before they would charge your card. Was able to get the charge reversed and used the Disney Gift cards that I had brought with me.
We are going March 9 - 16, 2019 so we will see what happens

We have had that experience as well—charges were made to the credit card but they allowed us to use a giftcard and they reversed the charges on the card.

Didn’t know they’d do that. Good to know, thank you.

I’ll just plan to confirm how things will get handled at check-in.

Does anyone have an update to this? We are leaving in a few weeks and I would like to know how exactly this works. Is it simply a $100 hold, or like I have read elsewhere, will a $100 hold be placed every time I go over the initial amount?

It seems to be an absolute mess. Every report on chat is different.

1 Like

That’s what I am finding too. I’m starting to get nervous about it. If it is just the initial $100 over what I spent, then I can make it work. But, if we’re talking an additional $100 everytime I go over $100 (which will be several times a day with 5 of us eating), then that will be hundreds of dollars tied up for “Holds” - even on a credit card, this will cause a lot of problems for us trying to then fund our way home to KS! Ugh.

I think you can probably expect there to be at best at least a couple of holds, possibly for more than $100. I don’t know if paying it off at the front desk every day will help or not make any difference.

1 Like

I’m sure you’re right. I guess we will probably just pay for items in the park as we go rather than charging them to our room. It just would have been nice not to have to worry about carrying our credit card around.

It seems like everyone is having a different experience with it.

1 Like

Yes it does, which is terrible.