Booking Vacation Package from the US

[disneykate28]

I am in the midst of planning a June 2025 trip and want to book a VP. From my research, US-based credit card transactions often fail. For those of you who have been here, done this, are there any cards that work best? Things I can do to increase my chances that the transaction will go through? My main card is a Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa. I don’t currently have a Mastercard or AmEx but wouldn’t be opposed to opening a new card to lessen my frustration with this process.

Thank you, thank you!!

 

[Lkillick]

I used my Chase cards this month when booking. No issues.

 

[Smugpugmug]

I used my Capital One Mastercard for booking a VP and it worked on my first try. If you plan on buying additional park tickets outside of the package on the TDR website, it will not accept any US credit cards. I used Klook to buy park tickets and it worked flawlessly.

 

[disneykate28]

I used my Capital One Mastercard for booking a VP and it worked on my first try. If you plan on buying additional park tickets outside of the package on the TDR website, it will not accept any US credit cards. I used Klook to buy park tickets and it worked flawlessly.

Interesting! Yes, we’ll be doing additional days in the parks. This is super helpful, thank you!

 

[disneykate28]

I used my Chase cards this month when booking. No issues.

That would be ideal! I don’t really want to do a fake booking all the way through and then cancel, but I may have to try just to see.

 

[gmi3804]

My Chase Sapphire Reserve works every time. Yes, I've tweaked my reservations a lot.

 

[Nala83]

I used my Capital One Mastercard for booking a VP and it worked on my first try. If you plan on buying additional park tickets outside of the package on the TDR website, it will not accept any US credit cards. I used Klook to buy park tickets and it worked flawlessly.

I was able to buy tickets on the TDR site from the US last spring. I can't remember if I used my WISE card or one of my regular credit cards (likely a Chase Saphire...). I had multiple options ready and whatever I tried first worked.

Klook was my backup plan and I know it is a good option too!

 

[Kwami]

The only card that ever works for me is my credit union debit Mastercard. My Citi Mastercard doesn't work, my wife's Capital One Visa doesn't work, and neither of our other bank cards works. And it's been that way for about ten years, too!

Buying tickets for Universal Studios Japan was even worse. I couldn't get any cards to work on their website. I tried Klook, but they severely limit the times that you can arrive for express passes, so I ended up booking through KKDay, which provided the full set of options that USJ offered in their official ticket store. I had no card rejections with them.

 

[Smugpugmug]

I was able to buy tickets on the TDR site from the US last spring. I can't remember if I used my WISE card or one of my regular credit cards (likely a Chase Saphire...). I had multiple options ready and whatever I tried first worked.

Klook was my backup plan and I know it is a good option too!

Yeah I was able to buy tickets through TDR in 2019 and I think I used a Mastercard but when I went last month every single card I tried was instantly denied. I just used Klook because I didn't want to bother trying anymore lol

 

[gmi3804]

Have people who’ve received the “card is not valid” message tried to run the card again? I recall getting that message a couple of times, and when I entered the same card (manually), it went through. Every time.

 

[Kwami]

Have people who’ve received the “card is not valid” message tried to run the card again? I recall getting that message a couple of times, and when I entered the same card (manually), it went through. Every time.

I always enter my card info manually and I tried every card at least twice before I finally gave up and went with my credit union MC.

 

[disneykate28]

Decided to try a dry run with my Chase Sapphire - I get to the point where I need to log into my Disney account and then it just circles. Sends me a code, put the code in, back to wanting to send me a code.

This is going to be fun, isn’t it?

 

[gmi3804]

Decided to try a dry run with my Chase Sapphire - I get to the point where I need to log into my Disney account and then it just circles. Sends me a code, put the code in, back to wanting to send me a code.

This is going to be fun, isn’t it?

You might want to remove the two-factor authentication so you won't have to have the code sent.

 

[disneykate28]

Thank you! Didn’t realize I had that on. Any idea how I remove that?

The good news is I eventually got it to work. How/why? No idea. The charge for the package went through on my Chase Sapphire and I was able to immediately cancel.

 

[gmi3804]

Thank you! Didn’t realize I had that on. Any idea how I remove that?

There’s probably a setting on your account page, near where you’d change your login password.

 

[fatmanatee]

Seconding my experience with Sapphire Reserve, no issues with anything, pre-travel purchases and using the card while in Japan worked totally fine. Both Reserve and Preferred are advertised for their travel benefits so they better work for stuff like this.

 

[Kestryl]

I was able to use my Citi Mastercard for Disney, but that was back in 2023.

I will say that the solution for USJ was to pay via Apple Pay- so if that’s an option, try it.

 

[Kwami]

Both Reserve and Preferred are advertised for their travel benefits so they better work for stuff like this.

So is my Citi MC, but...

I was able to use my Citi Mastercard for Disney, but that was back in 2023.

I haven't been able to get the Citi MC to work even once for buying Tokyo Disney tickets since I started traveling to Japan in 2015. It works just fine in Japan, even at TDR, but it just won't work on the website.

 

[gelatoni fan]

Seconding my experience with Sapphire Reserve, no issues with anything, pre-travel purchases and using the card while in Japan worked totally fine. Both Reserve and Preferred are advertised for their travel benefits so they better work for stuff like this.

Except that implementation of credit card processing in Japan is rather unusual. Right now, a lot of Japanese websites have issues processing Visa cards issued outside of Japan.

A common reason is that for security purposes, Japanese acquirers often require a credit card to be associated with a Japanese address for online purchases. So it's not failing due to Chase or Visa but because the Japanese intermediary that sends the transaction to Visa rejects it due to the foreign address associated with the credit card.