New Credit Card Authorization Holds

[samsonjs]

So I will just have multiple $100 charges and the charge of whatever I pay or one $100 at a time and when I spend up to $100 it will charge another $100? I'm kind of confused. Is each person's card different?

Does anyone have a Sapphire reserve and can tell me what their experience with it was?

 

[Dug720]

Right. If you put a card down during online check-in there will be 1 $100 charge run. I'm sure you can either 1, not use your band and never have another run or 2, have the charging privalges turned off when you arrive. Either way, there would not be another done and that $100 would never be a finalized charge.

Thank you! This is what I was going to ask. I’ve already done online check-in. But I never charge to the room. So I will just plan to have that turned off when I get there - I’ll need to stop by anyway and opt out of Mousekeeping.

 

[Dug720]

I hope I'm understanding this correctly. We plan to pay our balance with gift cards. We check into Pop on the 21st, and check out on the 26th, checking into Poly that same day...if I understand correctly, when I do online check-in, I'll have a hold of $100 placed. Throughout our stay at pop, we'll charge to our room, having holds (not charges) placed on our card for those amounts. As long as I go down to the front desk on the evening of the 25th (4 days into trip - or is it actually 5? Night before check-out at Pop), and pay off our charges with the gift cards, I should never see an actual charge, correct? Repeat the process when we check into Poly. We have plenty of CC limit - we don't use cards other than for travel and we always pay off right away, so the holds are not bothersome to us.

If you are going to pay off with gift cards, why not just use them to begin with? You can combine them up to $1000 on a card. It would save the step of having to go to the desk all the time.

 

[ninafeliz]

If you are going to pay off with gift cards, why not just use them to begin with? You can combine them up to $1000 on a card. It would save the step of having to go to the desk all the time.

because carrying around $1000 gift card is like carrying cash - if you lose it your are out of luck. You can keep it in the room safe and go to the front desk to pay everything at once. It's also much more convenient - not digging the gc out of my bag for every purchase (although I have to dig out my AP and ID to get the discount, so that benefit doesn't really matter to me I guess).

 

[sponica]

If you are going to pay off with gift cards, why not just use them to begin with? You can combine them up to $1000 on a card. It would save the step of having to go to the desk all the time.

I hate putting tips on gift cards, I'd rather just charge everything to the room. It's not like it's a huge deal, I'm usually walking by the front desk when I go to/from the parks anyway.

 

[heidijanesmith]

So we use our MB for all charging and leave a debit/credit card on file.

I am still confused on how this will work. They put a $100.00 hold. Ok, I get that.

I go shopping at EPCOT on my 1st night and spend $200.00. They put another $100.00 hold on.

2nd night we spend $200.00, so they put another $200.00 hold on.

So by night 5 we have spent $600.00 with a $600.00 hold. They take $600.00 from our account and the hold just keeps going and going?

 

[AngiTN]

because carrying around $1000 gift card is like carrying cash - if you lose it your are out of luck. You can keep it in the room safe and go to the front desk to pay everything at once. It's also much more convenient - not digging the gc out of my bag for every purchase (although I have to dig out my AP and ID to get the discount, so that benefit doesn't really matter to me I guess).

Well, not really out of luck. More than likely if you've combined them to 1 $1000 card you've registered it on DisneyGiftCard.com and if you've done that there is a way to recover a lost card
but
I do agree it's a risk to carry around and I wouldn't/don't either. I will however, not let them pile up day after day anymore. We will go by and pay daily. Unless this sorts out differently as time goes

 

[Spridell]

So by that logic the rest of us have to pay the price for your "loyalty" pffft...........nonsense, it is either for everyone or nobody, this only a start of issues with a loyalty program.........Now if you are talking about discounts for frequenting Disney more then........

ummmmm..... yeah that's usually what loyalty programs do. The actually definition of a Loyalty Program is being rewarded for loyalty.

Now, never in a million years do I think Disney would ever do what I am saying, and if you look back at all my previous posts I am against this procedure for EVERYONE!!! I was just giving an example of something.

And if we want to talk about Disney's biggest loyalty program...... FASTPASS+!!!!!

you are rewarded for staying on property while others are not.

 

[Iowamomof4]

because carrying around $1000 gift card is like carrying cash - if you lose it your are out of luck. You can keep it in the room safe and go to the front desk to pay everything at once. It's also much more convenient - not digging the gc out of my bag for every purchase (although I have to dig out my AP and ID to get the discount, so that benefit doesn't really matter to me I guess).

Exactly. I'd be fine with $100 or so on a gift card **that I'm carrying around with me, but certainly not $1000! I figure we'll be charging around $300 +/- each day back to our room. Yikes, this is going to be an expensive trip!

 

[sk_lou]

We were there last week. I made a room only reservation back in October (debit card used at time of res but nothing charged). Room balance was paid in full by check about 3 weeks later.

Fast forward to last week- I did not do online check in because I had heard about this change so we planned to use cash and gift cards. When I check in at front desk, the CM asked if I would like to keep the card I had used at time of reservation for room charges. I told her no and so no $100 hold was placed. 5 days later (our check out day) my husband saw a 100 pending charge for Disney. I went down to front desk and the CM said that it was the room hold placed every 5 days and it would fall off soon. Honestly, if we had been not checking out I would have argued the point that I asked the card be removed and we did not want charging privileges, but we were on the way out and I was tired! The pending charge did disappear the next day.

So- heads up for those staying longer than 5 days- a hold could very well be placed!

 

[jbethel77]

I went ahead and sent an email to guest services yesterday.. I figured it wouldn’t do much good, and I’d get a generic answer. But, it made me feel better lol
They got back with me today & we’ve emailed back & forth a couple times.
For the most part I did just get generic information, but he did seem very willing to help & answer my questions.
This excerpt from our conversation was the most interesting to me... he confirmed that the authorizations do in fact happen immediately each time you exceed additional $100 charges.

We all know how these guest services emails/information can go, so who knows how accurate..
but thought I’d share anyway

 

[Ckmommy72]

because carrying around $1000 gift card is like carrying cash - if you lose it your are out of luck. You can keep it in the room safe and go to the front desk to pay everything at once. It's also much more convenient - not digging the gc out of my bag for every purchase (although I have to dig out my AP and ID to get the discount, so that benefit doesn't really matter to me I guess).

Yes, this is exactly why. I'd be way to worried that I'd lose it, or that one of my teens would lose it when I gave it them to go buy something....because they couldn't use their bands to charge to the room like they have previously. And if I give them each their own card to use, then there are just more cards in play to get lost.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I think it would be nice to be able to have your gift cards as a method of payment via the app.

For instance in order to get Starbucks rewards I have to use my app. In my Starbucks account I've added all the physical gift cards I've gotten to it. We buy the You Are Here Mugs with the gift cards.

We've added physical AMC gift cards to my account so when we went to the movies to see Captain Marvel we paid partially with gift cards just by pulling up the app on one of our phones.

I could see keeping your physical Disney gift card in the safe but being able to have it on the app if you're out and about and want to pay for something with the gift cards.

 

[MarkinNM]

I went ahead and sent an emailto guest services yesterday.. I figured it wouldn’t do much good, and I’d get a generic answer. But, it made me feel better lol
They got back with me today & we’ve emailed back & forth a couple times.
For the most part I did just get generic information, but he did seem very willing to help & answer my questions.
This excerpt from our conversation was the most interesting to me... he confirmed that the authorizations do in fact happen immediately each time you exceed additional $100 charges.

We all know how these guest services emails/information can go, so who knows how accurate..
but thought I’d share anyway

Now that makes sense, as they already have the $515 "authorized" and have paid off the $415 that night, then there is no need to tack on $100 more as long as you do not go over the $515 things will be good to go the rest of the trip, I have been buying the gift cards for awhile and have a nice amount saved up and do plan on using them for the trip as you can not get any money back if there is anything left on the gift card, saved a bit with the various discounts used mentioned here on the board, so thanks for this very helpful info!!

 

[Spridell]

Honestly, the best thing here to do to have this changed is to complain to guest services.

If enough voices are heard they will change up this policy.

 

[chelynnah]

Honestly, the best thing here to do to have this changed is to complain to guest services.

If enough voices are heard they will change up this policy.

You mean like with the parking charges

 

[Spridell]

You mean like with the parking charges

lol true

But it did just work recently with the DVC points so who knows

 

[Erin1213]

This is another case where Disney doesn't think things through. Yes it's very common for hotels to ask for a card to be kept on file and even place a small authorization hold. However, hotels charges are fees associated with doing business with the hotel. It would have been better if on MDE you can link a credit card directly to your magic band, similar to Apple Pay, or Samsung Pay. Then it wouldn't have to keep sending over multiple authorizations.

 

[sponica]

Honestly, the best thing here to do to have this changed is to complain to guest services.

If enough voices are heard they will change up this policy.

At least tweak the implementation. I don't think most people have an issue with a hotel stay hold, but implementation here just seems to be designed to increase errors. Hopefully with more time they'll figure out a common sense way to do it....but it is Disney...

 

[P'colaBeachBum]

I think it would be nice to be able to have your gift cards as a method of payment via the app.

For instance in order to get Starbucks rewards I have to use my app. In my Starbucks account I've added all the physical gift cards I've gotten to it. We buy the You Are Here Mugs with the gift cards.

We've added physical AMC gift cards to my account so when we went to the movies to see Captain Marvel we paid partially with gift cards just by pulling up the app on one of our phones.

I could see keeping your physical Disney gift card in the safe but being able to have it on the app if you're out and about and want to pay for something with the gift cards.

There use to be a Disney Gift Card app, I had it a couple of years ago. When I went to put it back on my phone before our trip it seems to be no longer available.