Linking charge card to room key

[Twins]

Are there any cons to linking your charge card to your room key? Is it safe? What if your key is lost or stolen? We are staying at the Poly in August and will be visiting the water parks. It would be easier to just bring our hotel keys and use that to buy lunch instead of bringing cash, but I'm not sure if this is the right thing to do. Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[Naisy68]

We always link our card and put cash on our room card because I am more afraid of losing cash or a charge card - they are more difficult to cancel or get back. If you would happend to lose your room key card - cancel that immediately just by calling your resort and let them know what happened. They will also give you a print-out of any charges to your card so you can double check it for false charges.
Being able to just use ONE card for things is a great convenience.
Traveling is difficult enough - Disney tries to make it as stress-free as they can for us.

[Twins]

Thank you for your response. I think we may try it this time. It certainly would be easier.

[kevgraub]

The only downside I have ever heard is that it sometimes causes mixups when people are on the Disney Dining Plan. There have been reports of people having meals charged to their room rather than credits being used for the dining plan.

It does not sound like that situation will apply to the original poster, but in case someone else stumbles across the thread, just an fyi.

It sounds like one of the best remedies if you are on the dining plan is to avoid giving your children charging ability on their room key, then use a child's room key to pay for the meals. That way the waiter can only take DDP credits and cannot charge the meal to the room.

[HardShell]

The only downside I have ever heard is that it sometimes causes mixups when people are on the Disney Dining Plan. There have been reports of people having meals charged to their room rather than credits being used for the dining plan...

If such as that happens, will WDW work with you to correct it or are you just OOL for that meal cost?...

[kevgraub]

If such as that happens, will WDW work with you to correct it or are you just OOL for that meal cost?...

Every story I have read about Disney was very good in working with the guest and correcting the issue. It seems like this has to be done back at the resort and can take a little bit of time to get worked out. In the end, I think it is more of a hastle than anything and I'm sure Disney will make it right.

[Fizban257]

How widely can the room key be used? Do you need cash for cart vendors or do they take the key as well?

[Tnkrbelle565]

Most of the carts take your cards. There are always some where the machine is down and they can't but there are so many carts...just walk to another one. We always attach a CC to the room. I like being able to double check all our CC charges BEFORE we leave Disney. We know exactly what is being charged to our CC before check out and if there is an issue, we can deal with it in person.

[kevgraub]

Most of the carts take your cards. There are always some where the machine is down and they can't but there are so many carts...just walk to another one. We always attach a CC to the room. I like being able to double check all our CC charges BEFORE we leave Disney. We know exactly what is being charged to our CC before check out and if there is an issue, we can deal with it in person.

Yeah, there are some definite advantages in my mind too.

I don't have to carry both a credit card and my room key with me (which cuts the chances I will lose something in half)

If I do lose the room key, it is much easier to get it cancelled and a new key issued than it is to cancel my credit card and get a new one.

Like you said, I can track my purchases easier

My understanding is that they will work just about everywhere. I think there may be a few carts that they don't work at (funnel cake cart at Epcot maybe?), but in general you will be able to use that card just about anywhere on Disney property that you would normally use a credit card.

[vroomagain]

Not the OP, but is there any restrictions on the type of credit card you can have linked? I have an American Express card that i think I want linked.

[CanadianPaco]

Can you have the credit card linked to one card or all cards in your family?

[Tnkrbelle565]

My understanding is that they will work just about everywhere. I think there may be a few carts that they don't work at (funnel cake cart at Epcot maybe?), but in general you will be able to use that card just about anywhere on Disney property that you would normally use a credit card.


I was able to use mine at the carts in Epcot. Again it's hit or miss with the carts. I could use my card on day at a cart and the next day the same cart doesn't work! But for the most part they do.

[Tnkrbelle565]

Can you have the credit card linked to one card or all cards in your family?

They link it to everyone who you allow to have "charging priviledges"

[taylor5]

Can you link more than one card? For example, I would like to link our debit card to my KTTWC & DH's, but would it be possible to link a visa gift card to DS & DD so they could spend the money they have been saving for our trip?

[clutter]

I've never been a big fan of charging to the room. Since I have a Disney Visa, I have one of their rewards cards which I use to pay tips on the ddp. This year, I'm trying something new. I purchased a bunch of gift cards from my dd's soccer team's scrip program. The team got 2%, and I have a bunch of gift cards to use for the trip. I have a big one to pay for our APs (has to be there, using last years myw pass from free dining and upgrading) and our dining plan (when we're at DVC, no free dining there).

I only charged to my room on a trip one time, and I wasn't a big fan of it. And it's easier to tell waiters that the key has no charging privileges rather than say I don't want to use them.

[delaneyc52]

I too like travelling around with the one room card with charging privileges. When we had our teenagers with us a few years back, we were also able to get a print out of the days charges each evening to make sure they were keeping to their predetermined limit. Cast members at the desk were very cool and understanding about my daily request!!!!

[Arielle22]

We found linking very easy and plan to do it on the next trip. I bring limited cash with me and it allows me to pay one credit card when I return home.

In 2006 we allowed our dds to charge. When our nieces took them out one night, they just brought their cards and were able to buy their dinner.

DH and I like to travel light in the parks and this makes it that much easier.

[shaun&miranda]

We always link a cc to our room card, and it works really well. Like everyone else has said, it saves taking money around with you, and you can get print-outs to check the purchases whenever you want.

We have done this 4 times now, and never had any issues with it being confused with Dining Plan, or any other problem.

The only tiny annoyance is that there is a limit of $500 you can charge before you have to go to your resort reception (or possibly to a park guest services, but I'm not sure about that) and clear the balance off.

All that this means is they give you a print out of the charges you've made, you agree it's correct, they charge that $500 (or whatever) to your credit card and then your room key can be used to charge again with the balance back at zero. Once or twice we have been caught out at a restaurant or shop when our room key was at the limit like this and had to use a different card to pay with.

Looking at it another way, it means that the most anyone could ever use a stolen room key for is $500 max - and you still wouldn't have that taken off your credit card until you went to approve it going through, so you could stop it before it happened.

I love this system!

Hope this helps
Miranda

[Twins]

Great information! Thank you very much.

[catherine]

We always link a cc to our room card, and it works really well. Like everyone else has said, it saves taking money around with you, and you can get print-outs to check the purchases whenever you want.

We have done this 4 times now, and never had any issues with it being confused with Dining Plan, or any other problem.

The only tiny annoyance is that there is a limit of $500 you can charge before you have to go to your resort reception (or possibly to a park guest services, but I'm not sure about that) and clear the balance off.

All that this means is they give you a print out of the charges you've made, you agree it's correct, they charge that $500 (or whatever) to your credit card and then your room key can be used to charge again with the balance back at zero. Once or twice we have been caught out at a restaurant or shop when our room key was at the limit like this and had to use a different card to pay with.

Looking at it another way, it means that the most anyone could ever use a stolen room key for is $500 max - and you still wouldn't have that taken off your credit card until you went to approve it going through, so you could stop it before it happened.

I love this system!

Hope this helps
Miranda

I think that the limit for the Poly is $1500. Someone please feel free to correct me if this is wrong! :goodvibes

[WantToGoNow]

We always link our cards and allow charging on the adult cards but not the children's - I could see my kids going into a gift shop and buying everything they want. When we pay for our meals using the dining plan, we give them one of the children's cards that does not have charging capability - never had a problem. I believe the max at the value resorts is $500 but the mods and deluxe have higher limits (I believe $1,000 and $1,500). We usually carry around $40 in cash as well for those instances when we might need cash and for our TS tips.

[sskem96]

We've never linked a CC to our room card. The only CC we use are our debit cards, and if there were some kind of mix up I wouldn't want it draining our checking account.

We take cash, but only carry with us what we intend to use each day. We keep the rest in the safe, and go to the ATM if needed. We do have a CC, and we use it for the rental car because I've heard of them putting a large hold on your card and didn't want that to tie up our checking account funds either. We've learned from past experience that we're not diciplined enough to pay off cards in full each month, so we just avoid using them whenever possible. It's easier to say no to souveniers that we don't really need if we have to dole out cash instead of just handing them our KKTW card.

[JoshChristineplus3]

We love having CC access from our room keys...it made it so much easier. I love the detailed list you get and then sign off on for them to send on to your CC company. We do not have our childrens cards turned on though, just the adults.
I can see people who prefer not to use CCs for financial reasons not liking the system though because those cards do swipe * easy * so to speak and can cause a lot of problems if one forgets how much they are spending.

[MissNurse]

We linked our CC to our room keys last summer, and we really liked it. We stayed at OKW, and our limit was $1500. We were also on the DP and did not have any difficulty with them trying to charge meals to our CC instead of the DP. I have heard of people using their kids' cards for meals if they don't link the CC to their cards to eliminate any confusion. Every CM will verify you by checking your ID when you make a purchase also. So don't leave yours back in the room like I did! I had to chase DH down to pay for souvenirs in DHS because the CM wouldn't let me use charging priveleges w/o it. This did make me feel very secure, though. I didn't have one single CM not check my ID when I charged something. Have a great trip!

[Twins]

Thank you for the helpful responses. You've convinced me to give it a try. I'll do it at check in for myself and my husband. The kids are never away from us so they won't need to charge anything. I'll let you know how it works for us after we get back home.

[Princess Disney Mom]

I loved having 1 card for tickets/dining/charging.

There was a problem once with our CS being charged instead of dining credits but it was fixed on the spot.

[WillCAD]

Another alternative to linking your credit or debit card to your KTTW cards is to put down a deposit. You can deposit cash, travellers checks, Disney Dollars, or Disney Gift Cards, to enable charging priviledges. Any unspent remainder is refunded to you in cash at time of checkout.

I think that the limit for the Poly is $1500. Someone please feel free to correct me if this is wrong! :goodvibes

The limits vary according to resort category
Values=$500
Moderates=$1000
Deluxes=$1500

[PrincessSuzanne]

I love the fact that they didn't charge my card until I reviewed my charges at check out. I made it a habit of checking almost every evening to see how much I had "charged" and I also checked to see how many DDP credits we had.


Suzanne

[solar]

I love that I can put my CC on my key, and NOT on my son's. Easy for me, and don't have to worry about his spending! I give him cash. One card to carry, super easy.

[1ST time at DW]

DH and I will be at WDW, in Sept. staying at OKW(free upgrade),using the Military promo special,so we have 2 cards now for admission to the parks,which willl we activate once will get settled in at our resort.Will they be our KTTW cards,can we add cash to that card,and if need later on add a CC to that card?And what I have learned thru the threads is too have one KTTW card as our Dining points and the other to our spending card.Any thoughts and advice will be greatly appreciated.Thanks for all the advice.

[PrincessSuzanne]

DH and I will be at WDW, in Sept. staying at OKW(free upgrade),using the Military promo special,so we have 2 cards now for admission to the parks,which willl we activate once will get settled in at our resort.Will they be our KTTW cards,can we add cash to that card,and if need later on add a CC to that card?And what I have learned thru the threads is too have one KTTW card as our Dining points and the other to our spending card.Any thoughts and advice will be greatly appreciated.Thanks for all the advice.

Your KTTW card is your room key and yes, you can add cash to it and then later add a CC if you need to. Sounds to me like the cards you have are your park tickets, which you can't add cash to, but you can have your tickets added to your room key at Conceirge.

We had no problems having a CC and our dining on our KTTW card, I just went to conceirge each evening and had them print off my charges and my dining and checked to make sure no problems occurred. Besides, we had the QS dining plan, don't know if that made a difference.

Suzanne

[Twins]

Just got back from WDW less than an hour ago. Linked my charge card to my room key/ticket and loved it! We had no problems and I wouldn't hesitate to do it again. I'll never take travellers checks again! Thanks all.

[Cinbride]

Hi, staying at the WL booked tickets w/ the room. Can we put cash on our card and then add the cc later if needed? My DH likes to take cash but I hate to carry that around with us. thanks