disney visa question

[someguy]

i was about to pay my bill which has a portion of my cruise payment, my plan was to pay the whole balance minus the cruise payment (which is supposed to be interest free for six months). i called just to make sure i wasn't going to get screwed over and i was told that no matter what my payment gets applied to the interest free charge first (so i do get screwed). what is the point of offering interest free if i can't leave it on my card until i am ready to pay it. so my understanding is that i should not use it at all up to the point i pay off the whole cruise and then not for six months after (or until i pay the balance). this makes absolutely no sense to me so i want to make sure this is everyone elses experience or if there is a way to fix it so my payment goes to the other charges first. any help would be appreciated.


(i hope all that made sense)

 

[jfis1020]

good question........we just charged ours this week. DH will need to look into it! Let us know ANYONE if you have experince in this department!

 

[mickeyfanmom]

We have had our $1000 deposit on our Disney Visa for almost six months and have paid no interest. We did call and confirm this and also did pay off the other balance every month so that no other interest charges carried over.

There is one issue that you need to know about though. We found out that you must pay off the cruise portion of your statement one billing cycle before the six months is up in order to incur no charges. So in our case, 6 months would have been 11/18, but our billing cycle ended 11/13 (5 days earlier.) If full payment doesn't reach Bank One (now Chase I think) by 11/13, we will still be charged the interest and finance on that $1000 deposit.

When I did call to confirm that the $1000 would be applied to the cruise deposit and not the other outstanding charges on my card (that payment was not due yet for) they also told me that the payment would go for the charges with the lowest interest. (Which is what they told you.) That didn't make sense to me either, especially since the $1000 has been on there for six months with zero interest.

So I just paid off the whole amount to be safe. Hope this helps and makes sense!



PS- I am also interested in what others' experiences are, since I plan on putting the remaining $4,000 on there next week. With six months free interest for sure!

 

[someguy]

i was planning on paying the whole balance minus the cruise portion like you said you had done; but from what i was told on the phone, this was not an option. now i am extremely confused.

 

[skibum]

I was using this card religiously, but too many times there were problems with their billing - not getting credit for the 'no interest' vacations, not getting proper double points credit, and too low of a credit limit, and then them charging fees because we went over (charging a Disney vacation). The plan is to use it for small incidentals only with Disney, and after our cruise, take it out of our wallets and never use it again! Bank One has been terrible to deal with. The GM Card has 3x higher credit limit, and gives us 5% back towards a new car. This was a bad partnership for Disney, although when it came out, my wife and I were excited.

 

[pppiglet]

I love my card, but I haven't paid my cruise with it yet. I will have to remember to watch it carefully when I do. But those Disney points sure make bad things better. My oven went out last night and darn if we didn't have to go out and charge a new one on our disney visa. Yay...more disney rewards! ( and then I'll get some more when I have to charge the installation on Thursday!) At least I remember to pay if off now each month.

 

[pdarrah]

We have been using our Disney Visa since "Day One" - but we never, ever, ever leave any ballance on it other than the interest free packages (such as the cruise deposit and payment). If you leave ANYTHING else on the card, then they will start applying payments to the lowest interest first which is your "interest free" stuff! It is OK to make charges on the card as long as you pay ALL the new stuff off each and every month (on time also!)

Since this is how the card works, we are just careful to never put anything on it that we might not be able to pay off the same month. It has worked well for us and we have "earned" over 500 points this year. Since we visit WDW way too often, we always know we will be able to use them!

Pamela

 

[dirkus]

We have the card but got it after we paid the initial deposit for our cruise. I never thought anything about it and just paid the balance when I needed to with the card. We have the account set to automatically transfer the minimum amount needed to incur no finance charges from our bank account. Last month it seemed that not enough got transferred to pay our minimum balance. It coincided with some restructuring of accounts that Bank One did so I just assumed that there had been a mix up and that I would see some finance charges on our next bill.

I contacted them (they were extremely nice and helpful) and they assured me that I wouldn't see any interest -- although the gal I spoke with couldn't really explain why. I still thought I would see some charges show up on the next bill.

Well, I got the bill today and no charges but my balance was certainly not paid off. Anyway, I did some research and found that they had automatically put the balance payment on the promotional financing and are automatically transferring just enough each month to keep the account finance charge free! I am a happy camper!!!

While researching this, I found the following on the statement:

"You will not incur finance charges on a qualifying transaction balance if you pay that balance in full by the specified expiration date. To avoid finance charges on new Purchases (other than Balance Transfers and Convenience Checks, if shown on the back of this statement), pay your full New Balance minus your total current qualifying transaction balances by your payment due date. However, we must receive at least the Minimum Payment by the payment due date, even if your only balance is your promotion purchases."

Hope this helps!

 

[georgina]

Originally posted by someguy
i was planning on paying the whole balance minus the cruise portion like you said you had done; but from what i was told on the phone, this was not an option. now i am extremely confused.

Me too! We always pay our full balance every month, so I have no experience with finance charges. When I asked on the phone, he insisted that my payment would go toward the lowest interest payment first, which would be the cruise deposit. I am very skeptical about credit card companies, so we just paid it all off instead of chancing the finance charges. But it does seem stupid to offer a perk that no one can use, so there must be a way to do it.