Charging to your room

[honeymo78]

I'm not sure this is the right board to ask this on but here goes.

I know that you can leave a credit card imprint and use it throughout the World to charge stuff. Here is the question. It will be me, my fiance, my mom and my brother. Both my mom and my fiance want to be able to just take their room key/park pass and charge stuff to it. Does anyone know whether guest services/check in staff can accept two different credit cards and link each one to separate keys/passes? If it can't be done I'll have to convince one of them to take their credit card with them and then have WL limit charging power to only the one key/pass.

Thanks!

 

[CarolMN]

Only one credit card per room can be left for charging priviledges (it's a system thing).

Each room key has a separate number, though, so it is relatively easy to see who charged what and when. Some just go to the front desk the day before they leave and settle up - you can each pay for your own charges using your own credit card.

If that seems cumbersome or won't work for your party, then as you say, you'll have to arrange for some keys to be without charging priviledges.

Best wishes -

 

[McCall]

I have done the room key charge thing and all, but I am really curious, why anyone thinks this is such a big deal, when you buy something or dine etc. you give them a card, now whether that card is your room key or your credit card the paying process is exactly the same.
Now I suppose you get immediate feedback on what you spent by getting a printout from the front desk but since it behooves you to keep all your reciepts anyway to check against that bill what difference does it make if it is on that bill or your credit card bill? it is still going to be itemized on the credit card bill. I just don't see why this is such an issue for some people.

 

[Barbday62]

MCcall I think I agree with you also I have heard of DIsney double charging too with the room key. We have charged to the room and the print our is so long its hard to check out and we generally want to just get home by the end of the trip.

Good thought.

Barb

 

[hercamore]

McCall, I agree with you. I have never put $$ down on my room card. I just use my cc for purchases as i need it.

herc.

 

[sls23]

I think a lot of people like the idea of using the room card for charging since then they do not need to bring a credit card with them to the parks. Especially for people like me and my husband that do not bring bags or backpacks of any type to the parks with us it is one less thing to carry and worry about losing. I have always charged to my room and like it for this reason.

 

[honeymo78]

sls - you hit the nail on the head. The whole reason my fiance wants to be able to leave his cc at the desk is so that the only item he needs to carry is his room key. There are no children travelling with us so we don't need to carry many items with us into the parks. Obviously this is just a convenience factor for us and I was trying to see if anyone had left two cards on their account.

 

[CharlesandCamilla]

We have teenagers. It will make my life better if I don't have to be there for every purchase. I just have to make sure they know that all purchases still have to be approved. Thus the cell phones will come in handy. You can also use the room keys for drinks at carts. I don't know that you can use credit cards for a couple oc cokes.

 

[McCall]

Originally posted by honeymo78
sls - you hit the nail on the head. The whole reason my fiance wants to be able to leave his cc at the desk is so that the only item he needs to carry is his room key. There are no children travelling with us so we don't need to carry many items with us into the parks. Obviously this is just a convenience factor for us and I was trying to see if anyone had left two cards on their account.

Sorry, I know it is strictly a personal choice how you pay and what you carry etc. but the idea of "Oh I don't want to carry one big heavy credit card" I am being facicious here but you get the idea.
whether you keep your room key card in a wallet, butt pack, [which I do], or in a plastic pouch on a lanyard the credit card can certainly go in the same place without much todo.
I would be more concerned leaving the credit cards in the room, even in the safe then on my person.
Like I said individual choice just doesn't make sense to me.

 

[WDW LifeLong Fan]

Four of us, me, DW, and 2 teenage DDs. We always use our room keys to charge everything we can. We have never had an issue with incorrect/excessive charges. As CarolMN stated...the cards are numbered, therefore we know who has charged what.

The girls are very responsible and we enjoy letting them purchase food, drinks, etc at their leisure.

 

[Kermit]

If you were to get your credit card statement and find an error, it would be a lot harder to get it fixed from home than it would be while you were actually at WDW and could talk to someone face-to-face. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it's worth it to be abe to get it fixed right away.

I also like the fact that when I present my card to pay for my purchases, they usually ask if I want my package delivered to the resort. I usually do, but I frequently forget to ask, so that helps me out a lot.

Charging purchases to your room also helps Disney keep their costs lower, which always helps the consumer. They would have to pay the credit card companies more money for lots of small transactions than one big one.

 

[CarolMN]

There is also a "security" advantage to using your resort ID to charge items. No one but the front desk and billing employees see your credit card number and expiration date. Less chance of fraudulent charges.

That said, if you charge everything to your room, Disney has lots of data on you they otherwise would not have - anyone here who doesn't think they use it for planning promotions, etc.?

 

[clkelley]

The other nice thing about the room charge is if it gets lost or stolen, it can be cancelled and replaced IMMEDIATELY. It only takes the front desk a minute to print a new one.

Even the best credit card takes a minimum of 24 hours to replace it and most take about a week or more.

We always use the room charge for that purpose, because we tend to drag the thing out more often at WDW than we do at home, so if the actual card were to get misplaced, our trip could be a disaster.

When we bring friends on our trip, we just allow most of them charging priviledges and just check the printout periodically, and have folks settle up with their own credit card the night before checkout.

Carol

 

[beglluvr]

I find charging to the room to be very convenient because we prefer to pay to all our spending, food etc with cash or travellers checkes, so linking a CC to the room key saves having to carry much cash with us. We just go to the front desk from time to time and pay them off with travellers checks. It saves worrying about losing cash and we won't come home to a pile of CC bills.

 

[Grumpy37]

For us -- in this age of identity theft -- its really about the security issue. It also gives us a statement that is really easy to reconcile (I do this about every other day) and get any problems addressed while at WDW. Then I make payments on the account in whatever way is convenient (cash, cc, etc.).