$100 charge?

[Xalthon]

We are flying out this morning for our first stay as DVC members. We noticed that this morning we got a $100 charge on our credit card on file from “WDW FRONT DESK.” What is this about?

 

[sleepydog25]

In short, Disney places a charge on your card to ensure any incidentals are covered. It's been discussed at length on many other threads, so if you have time you can do a quick search on the boards. You get that charge back, though it behooves you to ensure you get it back when your statements comes in. It's not popular with guests, but Disney has been doing this for some time, so it's not a scam if you're worried about that.

 

[Best Aunt]

I think if you want to do online check-in, you have to provide a credit card number, and if you provide a credit card number, you are making it easy for Disney to assume that you will be charging things to your room.

 

[bluecruiser]

I believe that charge is typically a reserve not an actual charge. If you end up not charging anything to your room it will not be processed. It's Disney's way of checking/ensuring you have the credit limit for actual charges to the room.

 

[Ralph&Pam]

I believe that charge is typically a reserve not an actual charge. If you end up not charging anything to your room it will not be processed. It's Disney's way of checking/ensuring you have the credit limit for actual charges to the room.

^^^^This.

And you will also have additional charge authorizations posted as you charge to the room, even as often as daily, as your room charges exceed the $100 limit. I get email alerts from my credit card issuer whenever phone/internet charge authorizations are posted to the account, so I see these incremental charges after any significant meal purchases. The actual charges do not get processed until we check out, although I suspect it would be possible to have an intermediate charge get processed earlier if we spent enough. We have not done so as of yet.

I see the same pending charge authorizations from Alamo on the morning of a scheduled car rental pick up whenever I have used Alamo’s skip the counter feature so I can go directly to my car. Alamo does a $1 trial authorization when I complete the online check in to verify the credit card information as well as the later authorization for the anticipated amount of the rental.

We stayed at a Hyatt hotel in Miami prior to a recent cruise and they did a similar thing to the Disney process, so I don’t find any of this all that unusual. I again checked in on line and just stopped at the concierge desk to pick up my room keys when we arrived. I already had a text message with my room number. With so much handled on line these days, it’s possible to avoid ever visiting the hotel front desk or car rental counter while on vacation.