Anyone get a hard time from member services paying with multiple giftcards...

[bigvig1130]

over the phone? I called today and did not wait to talk to a cast member (must be a bit slow this morning). Anyway, when I said I had 19 giftcards, she said I could only do 5. When I told her others have done it, she continued to insist on only 5. The time we spent arguing, she could have just processed them. She finally settled on 10. Anyone else experience this?

 

[disneynutz]

I expected that they would impose a limit due to the increased popularity of gift cards.

Bill

 

[UFlawgator]

over the phone? I called today and did not wait to talk to a cast member (must be a bit slow this morning). Anyway, when I said I had 19 giftcards, she said I could only do 5. When I told her others have done it, she continued to insist on only 5. The time we spent arguing, she could have just processed them. She finally settled on 10. Anyone else experience this?

Wow. Did she indicate whether or not they (the accounting dept.) would accept more on another call at a later time or whether this was some new policy to limit our use of gift cards? I paid $500. of my annual dues a couple of months early to avoid the rush when the dues came out by using the $50. Target gift cards. It showed as a credit on my account. It is good that now you can provide cc info to pay dues online, but DVC would be doing themselves and us a huge favor if they would just provide for a place online to enter Disney gift card information to pay dues, as well as Disney Reward Card information. I really don't understand why they haven't done this.

 

[kid-at-heart]

Wow, sorry you received flack. I just typed all my gift card numbers in a word document and faxed it to member services. Within a few hours the credit was showing on my site. All dues paid. I was nervous about faxing my gift card numbers but I had my husband double check the fax phone number as I typed it in and the gift card numbers (I am severely dyslexic) and it worked out very well. Much easier than trying to read the numbers to a call operator.

Kate

 

[kristenrice]

I faxed my list of 18 gift cards last week and they still were not showing up as a payment. I called MS on Tuesday to verify that they'd received the fax. The CM said yes, but they hadn't processed the cards yet. I offered to read off the numbers to her and she said they can only process 10 cards over the phone. She did not say whether or not I could call back and do the other 8 at a later time.

On one hand, I realize that reading all the numbers takes up quite a bit of their time, but this is what our dues are paying for...service. If they impose a limit on how many they can process per call, it isn't going to be any more efficient since people will just call back and have to repeat the process. I would be beyond peeved if they decided to limit how many gift cards you could use towards your dues, especially if I'd already purchased them. It really should not be that difficult to set up the web page to accept gift cards as a form of payment.

 

[disneynutz]

I faxed my list of 18 gift cards last week and they still were not showing up as a payment. I called MS on Tuesday to verify that they'd received the fax. The CM said yes, but they hadn't processed the cards yet. I offered to read off the numbers to her and she said they can only process 10 cards over the phone. She did not say whether or not I could call back and do the other 8 at a later time.

On one hand, I realize that reading all the numbers takes up quite a bit of their time, but this is what our dues are paying for...service. If they impose a limit on how many they can process per call, it isn't going to be any more efficient since people will just call back and have to repeat the process. I would be beyond peeved if they decided to limit how many gift cards you could use towards your dues, especially if I'd already purchased them. It really should not be that difficult to set up the web page to accept gift cards as a form of payment.

IMO this is a little like the DDP loop hole that people took advantage of a couple of years ago. Disney accepting gift cards for dues payments was never intended to become so popular and the discounts through Target and other stores has spread like wildfire. The issue is that the stores only offer $50 cards for the most part.

I don't know for sure but MS may be funded out of Disney's DVC management fee and higher costs means less profit. I would expect them to change the gift card policy to make it less attractive to use them.

Bill

 

[yeahdisney]

The CM told me the day I called their bosses told them accept payment two ways only. So I guess one gift card one credit card, because members were complaining about the long hold time. So stated one could fax as many as I wanted and that I would need to give them two days to process. Now CM did stated I could buy as many cards I wanted from target go to disney store and they would combine onto one gift card, hmmm thought I saw on dis that disney store will not do that.?

 

[M5ward]

IMO this is a little like the DDP loop hole that people took advantage of a couple of years ago. Disney accepting gift cards for dues payments was never intended to become so popular and the discounts through Target and other stores has spread like wildfire. The issue is that the stores only offer $50 cards for the most part.

I don't know for sure but MS may be funded out of Disney's DVC management fee and higher costs means less profit. I would expect them to change the gift card policy to make it less attractive to use them.

Bill

My thought exactly!

 

[Snurk71]

I faxed my list of 59 gift cards Monday, didn't see them posted Tuesday, called Wednesday to make sure they got the fax (they did), and they're still not paid as of Thursday night.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-Note2 using DISBoards

 

[Dean]

IMO they should limit it to very few, 5 is too many. Too much time and aggravation to be worth dues paying for this situation or they should charge a fee per card.

 

[nabi]

Yeah right. Nope.

 

[Donald_Quackers]

I've seen someone post that they get all their gift cards transferred somehow onto one card, then calling MS with the one card.

Wish I could offer more, I have mine automatically deducted.

 

[crisi]

I've seen someone post that they get all their gift cards transferred somehow onto one card, then calling MS with the one card.

Wish I could offer more, I have mine automatically deducted.

Disney stores used to do this, but apparently have stopped. Or maybe some will and some won't.

Disney is not in a great situation with the gift cards - they are an administrative hassle, yet by stacking discounts - Target will give you almost 10% - that is too good to pass up for a lot of people. So they are used more and more - creating more and more labor for payment teams, which means either much longer hold times or more staff. For DVC, more staff means higher dues for all of us, including those who don't use gift cards. For the rest of Disney the situation means higher costs and lower profits.

 

[bigvig1130]

I guess it depends on the CM. I called right back for my other 9 giftcards. This CM had no problem at all processing 9 and seemed happy to do it. As for the admin costs, DCL allows payment.via GC online. You can only use 3 at a time, but you can go back as many times as you want until payment.is complete. So they don't need to increase admin costs if they utilize that payment option online.

 

[Dee77]

Most companies are pretty clear that gift cards are not an eligible form of bill payments. Disney allows this and IMHO it has gotten out of hand with people using dozens at a time, tying up member services.

 

[bigvig1130]

Most companies are pretty clear that gift cards are not an eligible form of bill payments. Disney allows this and IMHO it has gotten out if hand with people using dozens at a time, tying up member services.

Disney letting people pay absolutely everything via giftcard is genius on their end. People.save money on these cards (not on Disney 's dime). This translates to people feeling they have more money to spend on their vacations. So essentially, Disney is making money off of target, Costco, etc....

 

[crisi]

I guess it depends on the CM. I called right back for my other 9 giftcards. This CM had no problem at all processing 9 and seemed happy to do it. As for the admin costs, DCL allows payment.via GC online. You can only use 3 at a time, but you can go back as many times as you want until payment.is complete. So they don't need to increase admin costs if they utilize that payment option online.

If they can port that online functionality over to all of their payment systems, then they can tell people "we don't take gift cards over the phone....but online...." Then their costs go way down to accept them - and if Target wants to keep discounting them, its not Disney's problem.

 

[luckyman_apd]

Really they could just update their online system to accept GC online and members would have to do it one card at a time. They already have the ability to accept GC payments online. If you book a cruise or a WDW package on theirwebsite you can apply gift card funds......so they have a system in place.... They just need to add the component to the DVC site. But we all know how slow Disneys IT works.

 

[hakepb]

On the other side of Disney, CRO CM's were very happy to input multiple gift cards as payment for the 2 nights I booked with "cash"

The CRO phone system does have an automated payment option that took gift cards, but it didn't like one of my cards, so I had to talk to a "real" person

 

[crisi]

Really they could just update their online system to accept GC online and members would have to do it one card at a time. They already have the ability to accept GC payments online. If you book a cruise or a WDW package on theirwebsite you can apply gift card funds......so they have a system in place.... They just need to add the component to the DVC site. But we all know how slow Disneys IT works.

And its completely possible that the system they have to take GC online isn't compatible with the DVC systems without extensive work. It wouldn't be the first time that corporate divisions invested in their own independent technology stacks without considering interoperability.