Is it simpler not to put charging on room key?

[ajpa]

If you are getting a dining plan, is it simpler not to put room charging privileges on your hotel key?
So the dining credits & cc charges don't get mixed up if you are buying additional food out of pocket as well as using the a dining credit?
Or am I worried about nothing?

Aside from the convenience of not carrying a credit card, what's the benefit of having charging privileges on your room key anyway?

[2Tiggies]

I expect you will be getting answers from both sides of the camp on this one! I personally do not put charging on my KTTW card for two reasons:

The possibility of Dining Plan credit confusion ...
And, if it gets lost, I don't like the idea that it has charging priviledges on it. I know it can be argued that you can lose a credit card, but my KTTW card is in and out a whole lot more and therefore I don't keep it in a wallet, but rather on my person.

However, many people LOVE the convenience that comes with having the charging privileges on the room key and I suggest that you hear from these folk as well before deciding.

I couldn't tell you what the big advantages are since I haven't tried. I think it is just a "perk" offered by Disney if you stay in the hotels onsite, which sounds great, but doesn't serve a huge purpose. What you can do is put a cap on the charging allowance and I guess that would then be a safer option than carrying a credit card (if that is the way you usually spend) with a high credit availability. I am sure there are other advantages, but not enough to have pursuaded me.

[Smiling Cheshire Cat]

We used to attach a CC to our room, but don't when we use the DDP. Have just heard too many horror stories on the DIS about being charged for meals that were also paid with credits.

A good tip I learned here if you do decide to attach a CC to your room is if you have children with you use their KOTW card to pay for your meals. Their KOTW cards are not supposed to have charging priviledges attached to them but do show the dining credits.

[beroh2253]

not I feel safer paying oop for tips and I can always take my Disney rewards credit card with me, I don't have to stick it on my room key.

[JadeDragon]

Guess I'm one of the ones who likes having both... we've only used the dining plan for a couple of years though, but we've never had a mix-up with dining credit use versus charge. Even with buying appys and adult beverages extra. Then again, maybe we've just been lucky.

I like the convenience of having it all on one card. Makes one less thing I have to carry around and keep track of. And if the need arises, we can raise the charge amount on the 'room card'.

[wezee]

We always attach a cc to our room, and charge all of our tips, drinks etc. to the room. About every other day, I get a print out from the front desk and check it to my receipts. By doing it this way, I can handle any errors right then and there. We always get a full print out the morning of our departure and once again check that any charges applied to our room are correct.
We don't like to carry alot of money around and DH used to just charge tips to our credit card. But, I didn't like the idea of not being able to check the accuracy of the charges to the credit card until I got home....and then it's so much more difficult to have corrected.

[kiteri]

I have to admit that putting a credit card on our room key saved us BIG TIME!

We locked our wallets in the room safe and went to the pool after a long day in the parks... safe key in hand (well, pocket). We lost the safe key at the pool, but didn't notice it till the next morning when we went to get our wallets!

We had two options:

1. Cancel our day in the parks and wait for management to come and open the safe to get our wallets so we had cash/credit to spend in the parks.

2. Head to the parks and use our room keys with charging privileges that we luckily put on when we checked in and have management come and let us into the safe that night when we got back.

I was SO thankful that we put charging privileges on our room key. I know this is not a common example, but what would happen if you discovered that you left your wallet in the safe in your room AFTER you got to the park? You have your room key to charge too!

I personally wore a lanyard with a small "change purse" on it that I kept my room keys in. You can find them on ebay as fastpass lanyards. I didn't trust keeping my room keys in a pocket where they could fall out on the rides or a purse that could get lost/stolen.

I suggest locking the credit card you attach to your room key in the safe in your room and not taking it out until you are ready to go home. That way if your lose your wallet and have to cancel all the credit cards in it, you still have your room key with charging privileges attached to a credit card that is safe and sound in your room to make purchases on the remainder of your vacation.

It is worth it to have to check the receipts and clarify dining plan vs. credit card charges to me.

Just my two cents on the subject!

[msce2]

On our visit in May, we did not have charging privileges on our KTTW. This was due to our previous visit where we lost 2 cards which had charging privileges on them. After having to cancel them twice, we found it was just easier to pay with our credit/debit cards and cash. Miraculously we didn't lose a thing this trip. Being on the DDP we never had to worry about whether we were being charged or our DDP credits were used.

Another option is to get one KTTW card with charging, and use the one without at the restaurant.

[aubriee]

The second year we had the DDP we had problems twice with waiters charging our room key instead of the DDP. Since then I never put a credit card on file when using the DDP. I'd rather use cash, a Disney gift card, or a Disney rewards card. What some people do is have one room key without charging priviledges and then just use that room key in restaurants. You'd still have to pay your tips with either cash or cc though.

[Waseller77]

We have also had problems with charging items to our room instead of deducting meal credits, so if we're doing the dining plan, we don't attach a credit card to our room...

[TillyMarigold]

We were just there in September. We paid for 7 TS on the DDP and charged two to the room. We also used a total of 18 QS credits and charged about 3-4 to the room, and 18 snack credits and charged about 3-5 miscellaneous snack type things to the room. We never had any problems at all with it.

What we did was, when the server came to get the check, we would say (for example, at Jiko) "We would like to use four table service credits and charge the wine, appetizer, and tip to the room" or (at Boma) "We have the dining plan, but we do not want to use it, we want to charge this meal to the room") before handing the folder to him/her. Every single server knew exactly what to do.

We stopped by halfway through our vacation to pay off our room charge with rewards dollars, then just let the rest charge to our credit card automatically.

We left most of our credit cards and cash locked in our room safe. We carried our room keys, APs, driver licenses (in case we got ID'd for alcohol), and my DH carried one credit card and $20 or so in cash in a billfold in an inside pocket in case we needed them. However, he's really shy so I was mostly the one who talked to people at the restaurants and shops, and so for me it was easiest to keep the room key on my lanyard (actually I used the clip I have for work, which clips to my belt or clothes and has an extending cord that holds the sleeve for the cards).

It's much, much less hassle to cancel a room key than a credit card, and there's also more of a limit on what you can do with the room key versus the credit card. You can't take a room key to Wal-Mart and buy flat-screen TVs, for example. And it's sort of a self-reinforcing thing: you need your room key more often, so you look at it more, which means you'd notice quicker if it were gone.

[btcrane]

Originally Posted by aubriee

The second year we had the DDP we had problems twice with waiters charging our room key instead of the DDP. Since then I never put a credit card on file when using the DDP. I'd rather use cash, a Disney gift card, or a Disney rewards card. What some people do is have one room key without charging priviledges and then just use that room key in restaurants. You'd still have to pay your tips with either cash or cc though.

So on our upcoming trip for 2, can I attach a credit card to my room key, use it to pay for tips, drinks, etc., then use DD's card, which I won't attach a credit card to, for the DDP?

TIA!

[TillyMarigold]

Originally Posted by btcrane

So on our upcoming trip for 2, can I attach a credit card to my room key, use it to pay for tips, drinks, etc., then use DD's card, which I won't attach a credit card to, for the DDP?

TIA!

Only if you want to cause a heck of a lot of confusion.

Both cards will have all the credits and generally you're expected to provide all the payment forms at once unless you're playing in cash.

[aubriee]

Originally Posted by btcrane

So on our upcoming trip for 2, can I attach a credit card to my room key, use it to pay for tips, drinks, etc., then use DD's card, which I won't attach a credit card to, for the DDP?

TIA!

Originally Posted by TillyMarigold

Only if you want to cause a heck of a lot of confusion.

Both cards will have all the credits and generally you're expected to provide all the payment forms at once unless you're playing in cash.

I'm not sure what confusion TillyMarigold is talking about. The year after we had problems with waiters charging our room key instead of (or in addition to) using our DDP credits, we had charging privileges put on my room key and not on my husband's. We then just used his room key at the restaurants to get the DDP credits off of. We never had a problem and there have been alot of posts from people who do this all the time. You can then give the waiter whatever you want for tips (cash, cc, gift card, reward card, etc). When I was there solo this past May and again in Sept I did not have a credit card linked to my room key and instead just used the room key for DDP and at the same time put a Disney gift card in the folder the waiter gave me at the end of my meals. On the room key, it stated 'not valid for charging', so the waiters all knew to get their tips off the gift card. I've never had a problem doing it this way.

[Colleen27]

I love the convenience of charging to the KTTW and wouldn't want to carry my debit card (we don't use credit) around the World. It is relatively easy to call the front desk and report a lost KTTW, but not so easy to cancel your credit/debit card mid-vacation and have no access to your money for the rest of the trip.

What we do is use the kids' KTTW cards for DDP-only transactions, so that there's no chance of an error in charging to the room instead of deducting credits. For TS meals, we just check the receipts before we leave the restaurant, because we do charge our tips and adult beverages back to the room.

In 3 trips on the DDP/DxDDP, I've only had one issue - a couple of bottled waters that got charged to the room rather than as snack credits the first time we used the plan. Only $4, not worth the time it would have taken to correct the error once I noticed it, and a valuable lesson on using the kids' non-charging cards, particularly at snack carts and quick service locations where you don't spend much time interacting with the CM and miscommunication is so easy.