They are able to reverse the charges and apply the gift card instead though, no problem.
I understand what it says here, however, that is not what I was told at check in and on a number of other occasions when I have spoke to many different cast members here at the resort. I was told that when the charges reach the $100 mark, your card will be charge and it will start over.
I can see what this say, however, I didn’t feel like taking rhe chance. The hold, I understand and it doesn’t bother me. What does is that we brought over $2,000 in Disney Gift Cards and with how we were told, they would keep charging the card on file every time it reached $100. We have the money in our account to pay for all the charges but want to use the gift cards first.
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Yes, we had over $2,000 on Disney Gift cards that we planned on using as we have in the past but they way we have had to do that, has changed.
It may be a problem for some that intend to use GC instead. Say someone budgets $1000 to GC spending, with the new system that means the person would have to have another $1100 credit line or in the bank. So true budget would end up having to be $2100 if you want to use a MB.
True. Sounds like it may be better not to use your Magic Band for charges if you want to pay using a gift card.
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No worries David, authorizations are temporary holds of money that drop off after 5 business days if no transaction comes through to match them. According to Disney, you can go down and apply your gift cards at your hotel, which is what I plan to do. The buses to the parks are not far from the lobby so I have to pass there every day.
Also, I keep my gift cards on a mobile app called Benefit Mobile. In the app I buy electronic gift cards and hold them there. It even offers a cash back feature (5% on Disney). I will have my phone with me to take pictures anyway so storing my gift cards on my phone is also a good option for my needs. I can buy my gift cards down to the penny (ex: $45.13), which is super helpful since I don’t end up with a gift card with $0.43 when I’m done traveling. I may tip via gift card for meals from my phone.
I myself am a price sensitive person and for me to enjoy Disney, I have to know everything is paid for before I go. Gift cards are a way I can do that. Then I can enjoy my trip not worrying about how much things cost and my kids get stuff in the gift shop without me chattering about the high prices. Good luck to you whatever you decide. Your trip is going to be awesome!
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I believe debit cards and credit cards may be processed in different ways?
Tonight I tried to see what would happen when I charged more than a total of $100 for the day and at the end of the day, I went to the front desk to take care of the charges for the day (as all other charges were all ready taken care off.
There was a balance owed of $211 and some change. I paid that off. I checked my bank account and there was a hold of $311 and change.
So, what it appears will happen is that they will just increase the hold to be $100 more than has been charged.
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So when you pay it off the bold returns to $100? Does a hold impact a debit card account differently than a credit card?
I think this may be because he was using a debit card though. So they don’t want him running up too much “credit”, making the assumption that a CC would have more credit available.
At the beginning there were reports of it doing very strange things, like multiple incremental holds. But mostly now those using CCs have reported it doing what we would expect, increasing the hold at the end of each day to $100 over the total amount of charges accrued.
But reports of the charging every 5 days is widespread.
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I agree that it most likely is different with a debit card. It seems that @davidjjenkins1961 is reporting his charges plus $100 as being held but he could pay it off with gift cards. Debit cards are so weird. Banks process holds differently at times? Those holds impact your accounts differently?
Yeah. Disney will release the holds after x days, but a bank provider may take several more days to actually release the hold on your account. That could be a problem for people even after they get home.
We usually use a pre-paid VISA card for out of Disney use, but pay off the resort charges with a CC. I think we’ll still do that because of this new system, so that we don’t have any issues with spending elsewhere.
Honestly, I would rather take my gift cards with me and pay everything that way. That’s what we did at Christmas, and it worked out well. We had one GC for tips and then we each had our own card with our spending money. It kept us from going over our budget, or dipping into someone else’s allocation.
I think we’re going to have to carry gift cards around all week and im frankly annoyed about it. I realized yesterday that because we are driving, the hotel stop in Savannah will put a hold on our card, as will the hotel in NC on the return. Add to that Disney’s rolling hotel charge hold, the fact that we have one night at CSR followed by two rooms under my name at AKL, and the holds start adding up. Since it can take a week for the holds to drop off, we’re talking $500 in holds tied up for a long time even if i never charge anything. I guess I’m going to have to opt out of online check in to avoid all this hitting my cards.
We were just there. A $100 hold was placed on it. I carried debit cards around and used them for many things but would charge to my room also. On the 15th, we charged, I believe it was $231 to the room. I looked on my account and there was a hold of $331 on the account. When we went back to the resort, went to the front desk and checked on the room charges. We paid what the balance was with gift cards. I checked the bank account the next day, the 16th and the hold was released, this was our check out date.
With what I have been told, if you pay on the room charges at the resort, the hold will be dropped to the $100 charge.