Ok, so my understanding is that I will be able to just charge things in the parks to my room account using my magic band. Is that correct? If so, will it show in my app or any other place so that I can watch how much we are spending? Where would we see the balance?
Also, does anybody use a budgeting app while they’re on their vacation? I’m thinking something along the lines of being able to set a budget for food, shopping, activities, etc, then allowing me to enter how much we spend each time to see how close we are coming to our budgeted amount. I can’t seem to find a good app in the Google Play Store for that, but I have to assume that something exists. I figure if it does, somebody here will know. Any ideas?
I believe I have heard of a couple of apps made just for tracking budgets at Disney but honestly they’ve slipped my mind. I’m sure someone will be able to recall them.
Unfortunately, there’s no way I can think of to follow your tab you’re charging up except through your bank which as we all know can take a day or two at times. It’s super convenient to have that credit card attached to your magic band and that’s what Disney loves lol you don’t think about it until you get that 15 page invoice when you check out
Your c/card is nott linked to your magic band. You have room charging privileges linked to your magic band. Your c/card will be billed when your reach your hotels credit limit which varies by hotel. You can get a daily update from your hotel reception of how much you have spent at any time.
Got it. I misunderstood this. So, if one want to follow their expenses, it’s better to use a credit card as opposed to a magic band for charges? This way: one can use the credit card or other apps to watch this stuff
The magic band is just a proxy for the credit card that you have on file with the hotel. There’s a daily limit set by the hotel (but you can set it lower if you like). Each night you can check with the reception to get the day’s total. You can then either choose to pay with cash right then and there, or go ahead and charge to the card.
I personally have never opted to link a credit card to the magic band/key to the world card. It’s not that I don’t trust myself. I typically have saved up for gift cards over the course of the year for spending money.
I’ve never heard that there’s a daily limit, just a set amount that you can spend before your card is charged. It used to be $500 at a value, $1000 at a mod and $1500 at a deluxe, or something along those lines. Not sure what it is now.
I believe you’re right about those limits. I guess technically, those could be daily limits, though it could apply to the length of stay. If you cleared it daily though, it would reset to the full amount for the following day.
What people do in this case is to enable the charge to the room feature of their MBs,and then go to the Front Desk every night any pay off the balance with their GCs.[quote=“disney1974, post:6, topic:25916”]
There’s a daily limit set by the hotel (but you can set it lower if you like).
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Actually, it’s not a daily limit, but rather a limit where, once you hit it, they charge the current balance to your CC.
This is all great information. Thanks! Do you HAVE to go to the hotel desk to pay it off, or is there some way to do it each day online? And will they give you an itemized accounting of it, so that you can make sure all the charges are correct? I figure if I pay it off each day, then I’ll be able to make sure i’m not going over budget.
We did the express check-out, where we did not have to go to the front desk on our last day. They emailed us an itemized statement of all charges about 5:30 a.m. the last day. You can also go to the front desk to get a paper copy at any time. There were times I charged things (meals, purchases) directly with a credit card, instead of my magic band. I did that to keep my stuff from showing on DH’s receipts he turns in for his business expense (conference). But it could also help you if you are concerned about the hotel tab getting too high.
Just putting your budget on a gift card and using that is an easier way to stick to the budget. You’ll get the balance of what’s left each time you use it. Just make one gift card for your food and one for shopping/souvenirs. The magic band (among other things) does make it easier to spend MORE money. I do the gift card thing because I don’t like getting a huge bill at the end (and then having to stand at the front desk to pay it).
I don’t know of any way to pay the daily amount besides going to the front desk each day.
Yeah, I’m getting some gift cards, but I didn’t want to have to carry around cards at the parks, especially the water parks. I figure I’ll just use the gift cards every night at the end of the day to see where we are. That’s an interesting idea about separate gift cards for each chunk of the budget, though. Hmmm…
I think the limit is just how much until they hit your card again with charges. I went to the front desk thinking we were pushing our limit and didn’t want to be stuck where our Magic Bands wouldn’t buy something and learned that we’d already blown by that first number. But it was no issue as they were happy to let us keep charging…
Well… CRT breakfast for 6, and Hollywood Brown Derby Fantasmic package for dinner, plus snacks, water, and even lust a little bit of souvenir shopping for 6 could easily add up to $1000.
I never said you couldn’t spend it in a day, I said it isn’t a daily limit. Once you hit the limit for your resort, they charge your card, it doesn’t mean you can’t charge any more that day.
And we’re there for 15 days so if we spent $1000 every day I would be bankrupt!
