Managing a kid's magic band $

[Icecoldpenguin]

My 15 year old nephew is traveling with us and we want him to have an allowance for snacks and stuff so he does not over spend. Is there a way for us to limit how much he can spend on his band? Or shall we just go old school and give him cash?

 

[dislovefrommn]

I would give him a gift card.

 

[tjmw2727]

Unfortunately you can't limit room charging via the magic band it's all or nothing. So if you can't trust him not to overspend then yes cash or as the pp said a gift card instead.

 

[IsThatYouTigger]

Gift card is definitely the way to go!!!

 

[kiramay]

We were able to put a limit on our kids magic bands in 2014. Didn't try in 2015.

 

[wilkeliza]

Tried to put an individual limit and it didn't work. Of course you don't realize unless you look yourself.

Also tried to change 1 person's charges go to their credit card instead of mine. Every time we have tried this it wasn't set up correctly. 1 friend was great and just paid us cash when he got home but the other friend didn't ever pay us back.

 

[mom2rtk]

I think by 15 they should be able to keep track themselves.

 

[LiveYourLife]

I think by 15 they should be able to keep track themselves.

This. Plus I would not go the cash route - too easy to lose.

Can you just tell your nephew, you have X amount of dollars per day to spend? You go over that in one day, then it's less you have to spend for the next day.

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

I think by 15 they should be able to keep track themselves.

This. Plus I would not go the cash route - too easy to lose.

Can you just tell your nephew, you have X amount of dollars per day to spend? You go over that in one day, then it's less you have to spend for the next day.

Agree, but you could still end up with an awkward situation at the end if he over spends overall. And this is OP's nephew, not son. I'd probably go with a gift card to avoid any potential issues. So easy to track balances on there as well.

 

[mmafan]

cash.......and it will teach some responsibility....I gift card is like fake money so they most likely will not keep track of spending. its just swipe and go

 

[Icecoldpenguin]

He's actually quite good with money and he's very responsible we were just curious about limits on magic bands. We will just track it for him and he can bring us receipts back after he gets stuff.

 

[cgattis]

I put limits on my kids' bands and they worked fine. It shut them down when they hit their limits. (I thought I was setting a per-day limit, but it was a total, so they reached it sooner than I meant. Oops )

 

[AJA]

We went through 3 trips to the front desk and 3 resort CM's (2 managers) to finally be told we couldn't put a limit on my daughters magic band to just police it ourselves back in January.

Each time my daughter tried to use her magic band it would say "over limit" for any charge, even $5 when her limit was $100. While my magic band (w/o a limit) worked fine. It was such a huge hassle I wont fool with trying it again.

 

[Accident]

My 15 year old nephew is traveling with us and we want him to have an allowance for snacks and stuff so he does not over spend. Is there a way for us to limit how much he can spend on his band? Or shall we just go old school and give him cash?

Go to the front desk and ask them to put a hard limit on his band or as suggested, give them a disney gift card to use.

I'm not sure what the PP ran into but i've done it and it wasn't a hassle. It is a pain for them to do though so maybe they were just unsure how to setup the folio account for the hard limit.

 

[Love Tink]

We went through 3 trips to the front desk and 3 resort CM's (2 managers) to finally be told we couldn't put a limit on my daughters magic band to just police it ourselves back in January.

Each time my daughter tried to use her magic band it would say "over limit" for any charge, even $5 when her limit was $100. While my magic band (w/o a limit) worked fine. It was such a huge hassle I wont fool with trying it again.

We had the same thing happen last year with my sons. We were told we could set a limit on their spending - so we set up a $100 limit on each band (or so we thought). What it actually did was make it so they couldn't use their bands to buy anything at all. We tried to fix it three times - at MK Guest Services, at the hotel (where they took all the bands from us and reset all of them from the beginning), and at Epcot Guest Services. We never got it fixed and it was SO frustrating to spend all the time, think you had gotten it finally worked out each time, and then have the "over limit" error message pop up AGAIN.

I suggest the gift card solution. We did that in December at DL and it was great. I think a kid's personality, more than his age, will guide how he uses the card. My 15 year old hoarded his, as did my youngest. My 12 year old spent all his money in two days. We let him - it's a good lesson.