New Charging/Billing System at Resorts

[pogopossum]

Heads up to those with WDW vacations planned.

We just got back last Friday from WDW. I know that it was a split stay and this complicates things for charging back to your room. But this new system being implemented now will take some getting used to and required way too much time spent in the lobby on vacation. I am just giving a heads up to those that want to use gift cards to pay for charges incurred while at WDW.

1.) Make sure that your credit card that you put down on the room has plenty and I mean plenty of room on it. The new system does not authorize one time like it used to, now it authorizes $100 until you use that up and then authorizes another $100, and so on and so on. So debit cards should not be put down to cover charges. The advice that I was given by the desk cm was upon check in, tell them that you don't want express check out.

2.) Tell them not to post charges until you check out. Because now in addition to multiple authorizations on your card, they will begin to post charges to your card once it reaches a certain total. See above regarding credit limit. This will result in lowering credit available until pending charges fall off.

3.) In regards to moving charges to other credit cards or gift cards, my best advice is do it daily before 3 AM when the charges are posted. There is now no way to move everything at check out. After 24 hours the front desk can not access your folio charges and credit you back to your card on file and recharge new card or gift cards.

This certainly made our most recent stay unpleasant, and now we're in limbo regarding using gift cards or our Disney Chase card. Gift services billing is only communicating through email right now, in addition to being backed up.

 

[Bmlors]

@pogopossum, this is great info — thanks for posting this to help out the many of us who leverage gift cards.

Did you happen to ask if you could front load your gift card and have them pull from that as charges came in? There was another recent thread that indicated success with this, which was surprising since this hasn’t been an option in the past. But if the front desk can’t access or reverse charges after 24 hours, I’d hope they’re making it easier to use gift cards on the front end.

 

[Bjkandma]

Not sure when last time you want to Disney, but this policy you stated was out in place in May, 2019. People were charging and having a great vacation and when Disney went to apply charges at check out , the credit card was no longer valid, or didn't have enough credit available for charges to go through. People had a very cheap, almost free vacation. Then Disney had to hire collection agencies to try and recoup their money. How it works now, Disney gets their money at $100 intervals.

as of August 18, 2020 you can not "preload" gift cards to portfolio to use for charges. We have found it less time conduming, just to use gift cards at time of purchase. No need for front desk

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Yeah, this sounds like the charging/hold system that has been in place since last year. So, new in the 2019 sense of the word, but not brand new.

 

[cvjw]

Not new and a very much needed change to the system to prevent people from not paying their charges at the end of their vacation. Just use a credit card with a high limit - doesn’t have to be complicated at all. If you don’t have a card with a high limit, just pay as you go. No one is forcing you to charge on your magic band.

 

[brockash]

Heads up to those with WDW vacations planned.

We just got back last Friday from WDW. I know that it was a split stay and this complicates things for charging back to your room. But this new system being implemented now will take some getting used to and required way too much time spent in the lobby on vacation. I am just giving a heads up to those that want to use gift cards to pay for charges incurred while at WDW.

1.) Make sure that your credit card that you put down on the room has plenty and I mean plenty of room on it. The new system does not authorize one time like it used to, now it authorizes $100 until you use that up and then authorizes another $100, and so on and so on. So debit cards should not be put down to cover charges. The advice that I was given by the desk cm was upon check in, tell them that you don't want express check out.

2.) Tell them not to post charges until you check out. Because now in addition to multiple authorizations on your card, they will begin to post charges to your card once it reaches a certain total. See above regarding credit limit. This will result in lowering credit available until pending charges fall off.

3.) In regards to moving charges to other credit cards or gift cards, my best advice is do it daily before 3 AM when the charges are posted. There is now no way to move everything at check out. After 24 hours the front desk can not access your folio charges and credit you back to your card on file and recharge new card or gift cards.

This certainly made our most recent stay unpleasant, and now we're in limbo regarding using gift cards or our Disney Chase card. Gift services billing is only communicating through email right now, in addition to being backed up.

How recent is this? We stayed at Polynesian 9/4-9/13 and forgot to go to the front desk the night before checkout. When I went the morning of checkout they said it had already charged my credit card (it was around $700 - spent throughout at least the last 5/6 days of the trip) but then said they could refund the cc and let me pay my balance with gift cards. I'm wondering if it's more about the CM you get; then an actual change, as I've been hearing about a change like that for quite a while, but I'm not sure it's the same as what you're talking about.

 

[maryj11]

Can a person still use cash?

 

[Bjkandma]

You can use cash. There were a couple good booths at the Food and Wine Festival in August and at least one restaurant (Maria & Enzo) in Disney Springs that only took contactless payment. We always used cash for tips and servers really appreciated it!

 

[TheSouthernBelle]

Heads up to those with WDW vacations planned.

We just got back last Friday from WDW. I know that it was a split stay and this complicates things for charging back to your room. But this new system being implemented now will take some getting used to and required way too much time spent in the lobby on vacation. I am just giving a heads up to those that want to use gift cards to pay for charges incurred while at WDW.

1.) Make sure that your credit card that you put down on the room has plenty and I mean plenty of room on it. The new system does not authorize one time like it used to, now it authorizes $100 until you use that up and then authorizes another $100, and so on and so on. So debit cards should not be put down to cover charges. The advice that I was given by the desk cm was upon check in, tell them that you don't want express check out.

2.) Tell them not to post charges until you check out. Because now in addition to multiple authorizations on your card, they will begin to post charges to your card once it reaches a certain total. See above regarding credit limit. This will result in lowering credit available until pending charges fall off.

3.) In regards to moving charges to other credit cards or gift cards, my best advice is do it daily before 3 AM when the charges are posted. There is now no way to move everything at check out. After 24 hours the front desk can not access your folio charges and credit you back to your card on file and recharge new card or gift cards.

This certainly made our most recent stay unpleasant, and now we're in limbo regarding using gift cards or our Disney Chase card. Gift services billing is only communicating through email right now, in addition to being backed up.

Ugh that stinks. Definitely puts a damper on your vacay. Not sure how they relay to guests what the policy is but I think this has been in place for well over a year now and fairly standard for hotel travel especially resorts.

While I love the convenience of charging everything to our room, I have never enjoyed the walk up to the front desk to pay charges if we were using cash or gift cards. The last several trips we’ve gone to using our gift cards in the parks and the app for mobile food ordering and haven’t charged much to our rooms. I think our trip last month we charged one meal only because MDE was acting up and wouldn’t take our GC.

 

[cvjw]

How recent is this? We stayed at Polynesian 9/4-9/13 and forgot to go to the front desk the night before checkout. When I went the morning of checkout they said it had already charged my credit card (it was around $700 - spent throughout at least the last 5/6 days of the trip) but then said they could refund the cc and let me pay my balance with gift cards. I'm wondering if it's more about the CM you get; then an actual change, as I've been hearing about a change like that for quite a while, but I'm not sure it's the same as what you're talking about.

We were at the poly last month. They charged us $100 on our credit card the first day. Every day after that, they ran a charge on our credit card for all our charges the day before. Then, they reversed all the pending charges from the week and charged the whole sum at once at the end of our trip. Strange, I know, but it all worked out in the end. And, Disney knew that our credit card was still valid when they put thru charges every day.

 

[pogopossum]

I was just quoting the front desk cm when I called it new, he told me they had only been using it for 8-9 months. I guess if it is at least 10 months old it is old. Stayed at CCV/BLT July 2019 and did not experience any kind of new system. I just changed to gift cards at check out and they reversed the charges on credit card like always. I guess our 3 day stay this July wasn't long enough for it to matter.

But for those of us that don't get there that often this will be new and a surprise. Not to mention those that want to make use of magic bands the way they were intended and advertised.

As they say everybody do Disney their own way. There's really not a wrong way to me.

 

[pogopossum]

And as Bjkandma said there was no preloading gift card to your account. It has to be used to pay for charges already incurred.

 

[buzznina]

I will still do what I have always done, go down every couple of days and pay off our room charge balance with our GC, and if they have to reverse the charges, so be it. The big reasons we like to use MBs for charging is, 1) They are protected by a PIN 2) I do not want to carry a batch of GCs because then my DW and DD's would need them also, I do not want to always go into a store just to pay for a snack etc. 3) If we lose a GC, there is no protection and any one can use them.
Plus, I have never spent more then 5-10 minutes at the front desk paying off our balance with a GC, and I get a printout of the charges so that I can go over it.