I Love, Love, Love the magic bands and the fact that I don’t have to carry a purse. Many of you know that pockets on women’s clothing can be rather shallow so I don’t like to carry cash in my pocket. As a result, I really value the fact that I can pay for stuff using my magic band. I’m wondering about tipping though. Can I tip from my magic band for sit down dining meals? I expect to use cash for attendants for baggage and other activities that I typically use the day of arrival, but I can’t remember if I was able to pay tips for dinners from my magic band. Does anyone know? I use a dining plan, so at table service meals I still need to tip.
Yes, at TS you just add the tip to your bill and they can process it through your magic band.
When we used our MB’s to tip, they just charged it to our room.
Thanks PrincipalTinker and ApolloAndy. I was really struggling to remember how I paid for it in the past. :)
I appreciate the replies.
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Jist don’t forget the resort MB charge policy has changed. They will put holds for an initial $100 on your card on file, then holds for all charges you do with your MB. Day of checkout and every 5 DAYS if staying longer the charges will go through vs at the end of your stay. I haven’t seen many reports of how long holds take to come off, but it isn’t instant. It just took effect this month so hopefully there will be more reports.
I used to like just charging it to my room with the magic band. We checked in on March 9 and were told that they would be putting a $100 hold on the card. We do not use credit cards but do use debit cards and have money in Disney Gift cards to pay for this trip while here. Well, there is a $100 POS hold on our account, which is ok. The thing is, we were told that when the charges reached $100, our card would be charged. OK, so this makes it hard as we do not go back to the resort during the day. So, now I have to carry the Gift card so we can use it to pay for everything.
Thanks David. I too had planned to pay for those expenses with gift cards. I like to know everything is paid for before I go on the vacation so I don’t feel nickeled and dimed the whole time. I buy the deluxe meal plan so I can enjoy eating anywhere without having to check my budget. But tipping is where it’s harder to manage. I think my last trip I paid $270 just in tips. I agree, I don’t want to carry a card. I’m going to try using a gift card app from my phone, or maybe stopping by the front desk on my way to the bus to settle accounts.
Last night, which was the first day we were here, we stopped at the front desk and used a gift card to pay off the charges which were not that much but this way when we do need to charge to our room it will not cause them to charge the debit card (if we had a large amount of charges.)
For overseas visitors this may be troublesome as credit/debit card companies tend to impose a charge every time a card is used overseas.
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Thanks for the first hand report! Others have been told that it would not be charged until the end so I appreciate you being on top of it and looking at how it is working!
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No actual charge is made with a hold. The resort submits an authorization request to your bank, but doesn’t actually follow through with a request for the amount to be transferred. No money changes hands, so there is no charge.
Holds are far from unusual in hotels and resorts worldwide - most of them do it. It’s a way of ensuring that the guest has sufficient funds to settle the bill at the end of their stay. I’m frankly amazed that it took this long for Disney to implement them.
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Thank you for explaining this. Why do I now feel that I have saved money?! 
I have double checked and have charged some things. If we go over the hold amount, which is $100, they will charge what ever card is on file. Was told that is the new rule. So it is a pain in the but but I carry gift cards and a small amount of cash with me so that we can make sure that they don’t charge the debit card on file.
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Thanks! I was afraid that was how it worked!
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So this does mean that I wil pay overseas bank and exchange charges every time I spend more than $100…I wonder if you can voluntarily increase the ‘hold’.
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I thought the way it was working was that the hold will always be $100 more than what you’ve charged but your card won’t be charged till you hit the limit of $1000 or whatever it is. But that’s only what I’ve read and I don’t really understand how a hold works and maybe the people who have said this didn’t either!
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That’s exactly how other hotels do it, and how Disney’s hold should work. The initial hold is $100. Whatever you spend each day is added to that hold, and the following day another $100 hold is added. Your hold will always be more than you have spent. But, they don’t actually take any money until you check out, or the hold is released. The hold is just a confirmation from your bank that you have the amount needed to pay Disney - it’s not a payment. Hope that makes sense. 
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Thank you…my confusion was by people referring to a ‘charge’. A ‘hold’ is fine.
I know, it can be sort of confusing. The funny thing is that most, if not all, of the hotels and rental car companies people use have been doing this for years with no ill effect, but because it’s Disney people are suddenly panicking about it.
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Yes and $100 is quite low.