Card holds

[Princesca]

I've seen a couple of reports now about Disney putting holds on cards for purchases made via MB. Can someone help me understand how this works and amounts to expect? TIA!

 

[lanejudy]

Paying for purchases with your MB is actually just charging back to your resort room. So you set that up with a credit card. WDW will initially put a "hold" of $100 to make sure you have enough credit available to cover charges. Once your charges accumulate to more than $100, additional hold(s) are placed to essentially allow up to $100 buffer for new charges. If you stop by the front desk of your resort you can pay down the balance with gift cards or cash. Additional holds won't be placed until you charge above the amount already held. The holds typically fall off within a couple days of checking out at the end of your vacation, but they could stick a little longer because that's controlled by your financial institution.

Alternatively, you do not need to set-up room charging. Simply pay at the point of purchase with credit card or gift card or cash.

 

[Anthony1971]

WDW will initially put a "hold" of $100 to make sure you have enough credit available to cover charges. Once your charges accumulate to more than $100, additional hold(s) are placed to essentially allow up to $100 buffer for new charges. If you stop by the front desk of your resort you can pay down the balance with gift cards or cash. Additional holds won't be placed until you charge above the amount already held. The holds typically fall off within a couple days of checking out at the end of your vacation, but they could stick a little longer because that's controlled by your financial institution..

To give you a better insight about holds: they are pre-authorizations and this is absolutely controlled by the merchant Disney in this case as for the amount of time it will last. An authorization is controlled by the issuing bank and is usually up to 30 days. An authorization is what is used when you actually charge something. Both of the of the above will not be charged until what is known as a batch is closed many will close every few minutes these days. Both of the above guarantee nothing as things can change very quickly before a batch is closed. The only reason for Disney to do this is to try to minimize any loss if things do change --and they can and do. (leaving out examples of reasons on purpose) I have noticed Disney is very slow to charge the final amount I personally have only seen an authorization on check out day for higher then amount owed but we are DVC so it may be different being the points will be suspended is there is an unpaid room balance.

 

[EACarlson]

Once Disney releases the hold, usually at close of the parks on check out day, it is then up to the bank how long to keep those holds in place. Some banks release them immediately and some will hold for up to 30 days. This plays very highly in to the recommendation of don't attach your Debit Card to the MB and don't use a card that you are going to need to use to get home.

 

[gottalovepluto]

First charge/hold will be for any remaining balance on your hotel that is due plus parking plus $100 for incidentals. If you set up MB charging then the extra $100 holds will kick in as described above.

The holds can take up to a week to disappear in my experience with credit cards at least. I got myself in trouble once because I used a credit card with a very low credit limit on it and stayed at Pop, Swan, then WL. On our like 2nd day at WL our charging stopped working while we were in the parks and I got a call from WL my card was being declined. It wasn't because I spent more than I planned to it was because the holds from Pop and Swan hadn't dropped off yet (I paid Pop with a gift card and Swan with Marriott gift cards) and combined with WL CL holds there went my available credit limit. Very embarrassing lol. (And easily fixed on returning to the hotel and switching the card on file.)

 

[barkley]

this practice is why we always take at minimum a second card but generally a 3rd credit card with us b/c disney gaffed BIG TIME with us on a trip and didn't drop the holds so it ended up (not actual numbers but gives the idea)-

day 1 charged for remaining balance on room/parking...added incidental $100 hold, we spent $100, disney processed $100, posted another $100 hold BUT did not drop room/parking hold...or day 1 incidental hold so...

day 2 original room/parking hold still sitting there plus now a $200 hold (original $100 + new $100), we spent $100, they processed/posted another (again dropping none of the others)

day 3 original room/parking hold plus $300 hold (original, day before, new day), we spent $100....


by day 10 of a 12 day stay we got an alert that our credit card (high limit) was maxed out (this was on a late friday afternoon-we had a sunday checkout). we called the credit card company fearing fraud and they detailed all of disney's holds/charges (all of room/parking charges PLUS the full hold for the charges, all of the daily charges PLUS $6000 plus in accumulated holds). we went to front desk and inquired, credit card company offered to facilitate a phone conversation to explain the issue to resort. front desk manager acknowledged it looked like an error on disney's part, credit card company explained how to resolve BUT front desk manager said that had to be handled by a different offsite accounting division which was only open 9-5 m-f, not open on weekends and we would have to resolve it the following week ('oh, and btw-it can take 7-10 work days for the posting correction to show' says front desk manager who is also saying we need to provide a new card or find another means to pay for incidentals).

we ended up with close to $20K in unreleased holds that took a couple of weeks to resolve (disney aknowledged their error but not so much as an apology for the inconvenience and stress, had to scramble to find a means to pay for the remainder of our disney vacation let alone our subsequent lodging and meals for travel home.

 

[focusondisney]

Jeez @barkley that sounds horrible & so stressful. I used to do room charges all the time until a few years ago. Most of what we charge is at sit down restaurants. Last couple of years I’ve gotten so many discounted gift cards from BJs or Sams. I know a lot of people charge to the room then pay off with gift cards but that seems like an extra step/ hassle I don’t want to deal with. I find it easier to just pay with the gift cards right at the restaurant. Your experience reinforces that practice for me.

 

[Princesca]

So we got the Disney Visa room deal, so I was told I had to pay the balance of the trip that way, which is fine. But it's generally not my primary card. Will I still run into the hold issue if I buy everything with a card that isn't attached to my room?

 

[focusondisney]

So we got the Disney Visa room deal, so I was told I had to pay the balance of the trip that way, which is fine. But it's generally not my primary card. Will I still run into the hold issue if I buy everything with a card that isn't attached to my room?

If you pay the restaurant or shop directly with a credit card? No. These holds happen when you charge food or purchases back to the room. You don’t even have to set up charging to the room if you don’t want to.

 

[gottalovepluto]

So we got the Disney Visa room deal, so I was told I had to pay the balance of the trip that way, which is fine. But it's generally not my primary card. Will I still run into the hold issue if I buy everything with a card that isn't attached to my room?

Fwiw I I’ve been able to pay the deposit on a Disney Visa discount with it and then pay the rest at the front desk with gc/different cc.