New Credit Card Authorization Holds

[PolyRob]

Checked out of a split stay from 3/30 - 4/3 and 4/3 - 4/6. Rooms were paid in full before arriving. I charged everything with MagicBands and paid off with Gift Cards on the final night before checking out. I still have 5 pending charges on my Citi card 5 days after checking out of my first resort with no reversal. I still have 5 pending charges with 1 reversal pending on my Chase card 2 days after checking out of my second resort.

It doesn't seem the pending charges hit in exact $100 intervals. They go by $100 intervals unless the charge is over $100 if that makes sense. Say you charge $220.59 back to your room in one transaction. You don't get a $300 pending authorization, you get a $220.59 authorization. At least thats what it looked like from all my spending.

 

[Iowamomof4]

Checked out of a split stay from 3/30 - 4/3 and 4/3 - 4/6. Rooms were paid in full before arriving. I charged everything with MagicBands and paid off with Gift Cards on the final night before checking out. I still have 5 pending charges on my Citi card 5 days after checking out of my first resort with no reversal. I still have 5 pending charges with 1 reversal pending on my Chase card 2 days after checking out of my second resort.

It doesn't seem the pending charges hit in exact $100 intervals. They go by $100 intervals unless the charge is over $100 if that makes sense. Say you charge $220.59 back to your room in one transaction. You don't get a $300 pending authorization, you get a $220.59 authorization. At least thats what it looked like from all my spending.

That's interesting. I always thought they were authorizing your current balance PLUS $100. So, if your current balance was $450, you'd have a hold of $550. But yeah, maybe even that wouldn't make sense.

 

[AngiTN]

Checked out of a split stay from 3/30 - 4/3 and 4/3 - 4/6. Rooms were paid in full before arriving. I charged everything with MagicBands and paid off with Gift Cards on the final night before checking out. I still have 5 pending charges on my Citi card 5 days after checking out of my first resort with no reversal. I still have 5 pending charges with 1 reversal pending on my Chase card 2 days after checking out of my second resort.

It doesn't seem the pending charges hit in exact $100 intervals. They go by $100 intervals unless the charge is over $100 if that makes sense. Say you charge $220.59 back to your room in one transaction. You don't get a $300 pending authorization, you get a $220.59 authorization. At least thats what it looked like from all my spending.

That is slightly different than others have been. Maybe they've made a change?

 

[AngiTN]

That's interesting. I always thought they were authorizing your current balance PLUS $100. So, if your current balance was $450, you'd have a hold of $550. But yeah, maybe even that wouldn't make sense.

Which is how most reports have been, I thought. It's so hard to tell since there are so many different reports based on so many different charge amounts. Heck, could it even vary on when the charges report back to the accounting Dept? Say there's a delay for some reason (we've all seen their system problems in the parks) and 2, 3 charges pile up and hit all at once. So you have 3, $40 charges which wouldn't generate a hold hit together so it shows up as $120 and do that time? No idea, just mulling over yet another possible scenario.
DH and I talked last night about do we or don't we try band charging in 2 weeks.
This is the time to try it, 3 and half days, CL trip. So not a tremendous amount of charges to be done. Find out first hand what we think. Before we do our 7 day trip with DGD.

 

[MarkinNM]

DH and I talked last night about do we or don't we try band charging in 2 weeks.

PLEASE report out your experience when you get back!!!!

 

[mickeyluv'r]

Exactly.
Other hotels don't have magic bands where you charge everything - gifts, toiletries, drinks, dinners out - back to your room. It's easy to blow through and beyond $100 a day, and then easy to rack up multiple $100 holds.

Actually, many hotels do allow guests to charge back to their room.

At most hotels, you just present your room key. (Okay, so technically not a band, but it works the same way.) Usually, it is very easy to charge a meal, beverage, or gift shop purchase back to your room.

Disney also isn't the only vacation destination to offer a kind of wrist band that magically allows property-wide charging.

 

[AngiTN]

Actually, many hotels do allow guests to charge back to their room.

At most hotels, you just present your room key. (Okay, so technically not a band, but it works the same way.) Usually, it is very easy to charge a meal, beverage, or gift shop purchase back to your room.

Disney also isn't the only vacation destination to offer a kind of wrist band that magically allows property-wide charging.

Even Universal, right down the street does it
Our local music festival is going to use a band charging system this year.
Last year they started using it for admission only but now they are adding on purchasing

 

[DisneyGirlMI]

I’m so confused. So if I use my magic band to buy two bottles of soda in the park are they going to authorize it for $8.00ish until my purchases exceed the original $100 auth, or are they going to authorize $100 every time I purchase something under $100? So if I spend $8 on soda each day for 10 days am I going to have 10 $100 authorizations, or will they charge the $8 against the original $100 until it’s exceeded, at which time a new $100 auth goes on??

 

[Iowamomof4]

I’m so confused. So if I use my magic band to buy two bottles of soda in the park are they going to authorize it for $8.00ish until my purchases exceed the original $100 auth, or are they going to authorize $100 every time I purchase something under $100? So if I spend $8 on soda each day for 10 days am I going to have 10 $100 authorizations, or will they charge the $8 against the original $100 until it’s exceeded, at which time a new $100 auth goes on??

The bolded is more like how they seem to be doing it.

 

[AngiTN]

I’m so confused. So if I use my magic band to buy two bottles of soda in the park are they going to authorize it for $8.00ish until my purchases exceed the original $100 auth, or are they going to authorize $100 every time I purchase something under $100? So if I spend $8 on soda each day for 10 days am I going to have 10 $100 authorizations, or will they charge the $8 against the original $100 until it’s exceeded, at which time a new $100 auth goes on??

The bold, I believe. The weird stuff starts happening when there are more than 1 hold and charges and things crossing, holding, falling off, etc. It's easy to have that happen every day, going over $100 that is

 

[DisneyGirlMI]

The bolded is more like how they seem to be doing it.

The bold, I believe. The weird stuff starts happening when there are more than 1 hold and charges and things crossing, holding, falling off, etc. It's easy to have that happen every day, going over $100 that is

Thanks so much! Makes me feel a little better. We’re going to be there for 11 days in August. I can understand anew $100 authorization after one is exceeded and don’t have a problem with that, but I do if they are going to round every purchase up to $100 for authorization.

 

[bluezy]

Actually, many hotels do allow guests to charge back to their room.

At most hotels, you just present your room key. (Okay, so technically not a band, but it works the same way.) Usually, it is very easy to charge a meal, beverage, or gift shop purchase back to your room.

Disney also isn't the only vacation destination to offer a kind of wrist band that magically allows property-wide charging.

I think the big difference is that at Disney, you have far more opportunities to charge things back to your room compared to a standard hotel. We've never charged more than *maybe* $200 back to our room at a hotel on a non-Disney vacation (even if it's a 7 or 8 day stay). We don't spend much time at the hotel -- we're out doing things, eating at various restaurants in town, buying souvenirs at whatever tourist attraction we're at that day. None of those things can be charged back to the hotel. On a 7 or 8 day stay at a Disney resort we hit $100 in room charges just by buying the refillable mugs when we get there. Even though we eat most of our meals somewhere other than our resort and most of our souvenirs are purchased somewhere other than our resort, we never leave "the bubble" so those charges ALL go back to our room. We usually have a few thousand dollars in room charges at Disney. That would never happen at a regular hotel -- in fact, most times I don't even bother with room charging at other hotels as it's just as easy to pull out a credit card as it is to pull out our room key. We will continue to charge to our Disney resort room the same way we have in the past but only because our credit limit is high enough to absorb all of the holds and charges without us having to worry about it. If we weren't in that situation, I'd probably charge very little to the room and just use the credit card for everything at the POS (though that would get challenging when the kids go off on their own and need to buy meals/snacks). And there's no way I'd ever put a debit card on my account with the way they're handling the holds/charges now. I feel bad for the guests who don't have the option of a credit card with a high credit limit. Disney has made it much less convenient to charge to the room for those guests.

 

[MarkinNM]

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

I’m so confused. So if I use my magic band to buy two bottles of soda in the park are they going to authorize it for $8.00ish until my purchases exceed the original $100 auth, or are they going to authorize $100 every time I purchase something under $100? So if I spend $8 on soda each day for 10 days am I going to have 10 $100 authorizations, or will they charge the $8 against the original $100 until it’s exceeded, at which time a new $100 auth goes on??

Go to jbethel77, post: 60428285 a really, really good summery of how things "should" work according to Disney......hope this helps....

 

[PolyRob]

That is slightly different than others have been. Maybe they've made a change?

Yeah, I was taken by surprise when I saw the varying amounts rather than $100 increments. We didn't buy that many snacks or small items so maybe that had an impact.

 

[PolyRob]

Checking again today, all of my pending authorizations with Citi are still pending now 6 days after checking out. Chase looks like all (including the reversal) has dropped off except the last authorization (4/5) 3 days after checking out. Chase is much faster than Citi!!

 

[MinnieMSue]

This is so confusing. Trying to figure out consistencies. Maybe there aren’t any lol. I almost want to do a survey where people vote on how Disney handled their holds to see what most are experiencing. Anyway, we are staying 14 nights. We plan to charge very little to our room during that whole time. Should definitely be less than $100 for the stay. My question is on day 5 and 10 (?) they will run my card for whatever little charges we have. Will they then put a new $100 hold on the card each of those days? I am pretty sure the first hold would fall off before the 3rd one is placed but still I would rather not have all the holds on my card. Trying to decide if the small amount of convenience in letting the kid charge a snack on her band is worth it over just handing her a gift card to do it.

 

[AngiTN]

This is so confusing. Trying to figure out consistencies. Maybe there aren’t any lol. I almost want to do a survey where people vote on how Disney handled their holds to see what most are experiencing. Anyway, we are staying 14 nights. We plan to charge very little to our room during that whole time. Should definitely be less than $100 for the stay. My question is on day 5 and 10 (?) they will run my card for whatever little charges we have. Will they then put a new $100 hold on the card each of those days? I am pretty sure the first hold would fall off before the 3rd one is placed but still I would rather not have all the holds on my card. Trying to decide if the small amount of convenience in letting the kid charge a snack on her band is worth it over just handing her a gift card to do it.

If it's that small just but them a gift card

 

[halfpintpeggy]

I did online check in to expedite check in process for today. I was just notified Disney charged (charged, not a hold) $100 to my account. I am still at home.

That is illegal.

 

[Scoobie]

We will continue to charge to our Disney resort room the same way we have in the past but only because our credit limit is high enough to absorb all of the holds and charges without us having to worry about it.

See, if this was the only thing to worry about, I wouldn't have a problem. However, the cc's I'll be using are through Capital One, and they are fraud alert happy. Those strange and unusual, constant holds will be dinging all kinds of bells with my cc company, and then I'll have to frequently be answering their messages on whether I made the purchase, or have to contact them when they place a freeze on on my card. After, of course, I'm getting denied at a store or restaurant first. That right there is my nightmare scenario. For a long trip in Disney, this could potentially happen more than once. NOPE.

 

[bluezy]

See, if this was the only thing to worry about, I wouldn't have a problem. However, the cc's I'll be using are through Capital One, and they are fraud alert happy. Those strange and unusual, constant holds will be dinging all kinds of bells with my cc company, and then I'll have to frequently be answering their messages on whether I made the purchase, or have to contact them when they place a freeze on on my card. After, of course, I'm getting denied at a store or restaurant first. That right there is my nightmare scenario. For a long trip in Disney, this could potentially happen more than once. NOPE.

Yes, that would be frustrating and would probably make me just use the credit card everywhere rather than charging back to the room just to avoid the numerous holds. I always notify Chase when we travel because we *did* have our card frozen one time for suspected fraud while we were on our way to Disney when I forgot to notify them. It wasn't fraud -- just an unusual pattern of charges due to unique circumstances -- and it was straightened out in 2 minutes with a phone call. We haven't had that problem ever again and now I make sure to notify them when we travel. I will either send a note or make a phone call before our next Disney trip to have them put a note on our account about specifically being at Disney and their ridiculous "hold" policy. Not sure if it will help or not, but it's worth a try. We always travel with more than one credit card, so if the Disney Chase gets frozen due to suspected fraud, we'd just pull out a different card to use for the rest of the vacation and not charge to the room anymore. Ideally, I'm hoping they get this whole situation worked out before we go again (next year) so we (and millions of other people) don't have to deal with these issues and idiosyncrasies anymore. I wish they'd give people the option of saying how much of a hold they want put on their account when they check in (with a minimum/default of $200) and then charge the card one time when they hit that amount (with a 2nd hold being placed at that point). If they did this during online check-in (or even if it required a trip to the front desk at arrival) at least people could notify their credit card company ahead of time that they authorized a hold for that amount so it doesn't get flagged as fraud. I'd tell Disney to put a $3000 hold on the card and be done with it. If people charge everything to their room (like us), they will be hitting a $100 hold multiple times a day every day of their stay. I don't understand where they came up with the $100 amount. That just seems ridiculously low. Like others have said, most hotels are at least $200 and my son has been at ski resorts where the hold is $300-500 (with that hold being put on the card every 4 days even if there are no charges to the room). I can't imagine that the accounting department and auditors at Disney are fans of this procedure as it stands today -- that's a lot of transactions to work through.