New Credit Card Authorization Holds

[3threebabies]

I did online check in to expedite check in process for today. I was just notified Disney charged (charged, not a hold) $100 to my account. I am still at home.

Please make sure you correctly describe/define activity on your card, so other people don’t freak out. If today is the first time you saw activity from Disney on your credit card, it is a pending charge also known as a “hold.” A charge is when the line item clears your bank and becomes a charge/debit against your financial account. Now, if you have truly had $100 charged to your card before reaching Disney, that is a new data point and please provide all pertinent information. As a previous poster stated, it would be helpful if posters provide bank name and delineate if card is debit or credit. All of those details matter to how the hold, charge and clear process will work.

 

[AngiTN]

Is anyone else going to start sending guest services complaints?
Obviously not insisting they go back to the old method since I’m sure they were getting burned... so I’m understanding of the need for a policy change.

But, maybe they need to hear some complaints that they need do handle it much differently. Like posters have said, other hotels/resorts do this, but in a different way. And Disney is a whole different kind of vacation than most with all of the charging available, $100 is kind of a joke!

Probably a long shot, and no changes will happen... but you never know..

Well, I can't really complain about something that hasn't impacted me yet. So no.
If, when I go on our next trip (here in about 3 weeks) there's any issues or I notice any differences that are negative, then sure, I'll voice my displeasures. But no, I don't believe in complaining about possible problems that I read about others having or that I think may impact me. I don't personally feel they hold any weight at all. I know if I was on the receiving end of those complaints I would toss them right in the trash.

But there's been others who return and find that their trips came off with very little differences in the end. So for now, I'm going to hold off on any final decisions until I see how it works in person rather than just reading about it. I mean, sure, I trust folks are telling the truth here but I'm not sure we always get every single detail needed to fully and completely evaluate everything.

 

[Searc]

Please make sure you correctly describe/define activity on your card, so other people don’t freak out. If today is the first time you saw activity from Disney on your credit card, it is a pending charge also known as a “hold.” A charge is when the line item clears your bank and becomes a charge/debit against your financial account. Now, if you have truly had $100 charged to your card before reaching Disney, that is a new data point and please provide all pertinent information. As a previous poster stated, it would be helpful if posters provide bank name and delineate if card is debit or credit. All of those details matter to how the hold, charge and clear process will work.

I was notified Disney CHARGED $100 to my account. I was very clear in my previous post.

 

[Farro]

You are looking at the initial 100 hold. I think people are worried about the incremental holds that may be placed while they stay.
If Enterprise placed additional holds after incremental mileage increases that would affect how people looked at that hold.
You also are ignoring that many peole use their debit cards as security, and the holds may affect them and their available balances differently.

I do agree that people will need to change how they approach WDW spending asked on their own individual circumstances.

Exactly.

You can tell me about other hotels all you want, but fact is that WDW resort stays are a different animal. Other hotels don't have magic bands where you charge everything - gifts, toiletries, drinks, dinners out - back to your room. It's easy to blow through and beyond $100 a day, and then easy to rack up multiple $100 holds.

I'm very thankful for everyone's information on this thread! We most definitely will be changing up this next trip and paying for dinners, etc. with our credit card rather than Magic Band. We will still use Magic Bands, but will be prudent about it.

 

[kristenrice]

I have read through this entire thread this morning and I have a few comments/questions as to how this may effect our trip in October.

We are traveling as an extended family (3 family units) and staying together in a 2BR DVC villa (8 nights split between AKV and BWV). In the past, we have been able to assign different credit cards to different MB's at check-in so that my dad, my sister and I could keep our charges separate. We all use gift cards anyways and pay down our balances every night. Question #1: HOW DOES THIS NEW POLICY EFFECT MULTIPLE CREDIT CARDS ON ONE RESERVATION? Will we each see a hold? Or will it only go onto one card?

To keep it simple, we decided that for our upcoming trip, we will try and minimize our use of MB's as much as possible. We will simply carry our gift cards with us and use them to make our purchases. One obstacle to doing this exclusively is that we have several ADR's planned where we will be using my TIW discount. Since I am the cardholder, I will need to make the payment. What we have done in the past is I pay for the meals with my MB and then at the end of the night, we go to the front desk and split the charge and pay with our gift cards. Question #2: DOES THIS MEAN THAT FOR EACH MEAL, MY CREDIT CARD WILL BE HIT WITH A $100+ HOLD? I just need to make sure that I plan appropriately and I bring the right card. I have a card that is never used (purely for emergencies, high limit, long credit history) so it won't be at risk of going over any limits due to holds. The charges should never hit it anyways since we will be paying with the gift cards.

I am torn as to what will be the easiest and safest way to manage our vacation funds. We all have gift cards, but we don't want to be carrying around a) multiple cards, or b) a large, $1000 card in the parks, and run the risk of losing them. This is the advantage of using the MB's...we can just lock the gift cards in the safe. On the other hand, with this new policy, I don't like the idea of our credit cards being hit with a bunch of holds either. We are a party of 8, however, and we have dining plans at TS restaurants every day and each meal will easily exceed $350-$400 so our holds could add up VERY quickly. Considering we will be there for a total of 8 nights on our DVC stay, plus we are each arriving a day early and staying at Pop Century and POR, the holds are definitely a concern.

We all have Chase Disney Visa cards and I am almost 100% certain they are the cards that we will be using for this trip so any DP's with those cards will be appreciated.

 

[DavidL]

Somewhat related to this thread - Many people are looking to use gift cards instead of charging to the room. We were at the parks last week. Twice we pulled out our gift card to make ice cream purchases to be old that the "wifi" was down, and all that they could take was a credit card or charge to the room.. The restaurants likely have better connectivity and won't have this issue as frequently. I just wanted to share our experience from last week where we were unable to use the gift card and had to pay by credit card or do a room charge.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Exactly.

You can tell me about other hotels all you want, but fact is that WDW resort stays are a different animal. Other hotels don't have magic bands where you charge everything - gifts, toiletries, drinks, dinners out - back to your room. It's easy to blow through and beyond $100 a day, and then easy to rack up multiple $100 holds.

I'm very thankful for everyone's information on this thread! We most definitely will be changing up this next trip and paying for dinners, etc. with our credit card rather than Magic Band. We will still use Magic Bands, but will be prudent about it.

Originally I was in the NBD camp but Disney be crazy on how they are opting to do holds.

That being said I do agree that you likely on average chargeback to the room is on a higher amount with MBs but other hotels out there have chargeback to the rooms for things like food, gifts, toiletries, drinks, etc. You simply tell them your room number or give them your key card and voila it's charged to your room.

To me it's the nature of Disney that would different on that aspect compared to other hotels since you're generally well away from the hotel when the charges are being applied to your room--you're in the parks or other hotels rather than being more or less in your hotel area which is more like how other hotels operate. You have more opportunities to charge back to your room on a more frequent basis I would say at Disney in comparison to other hotels and that by nature may mean your daily amount could be higher on average than how it is on average for other hotels.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Somewhat related to this thread - Many people are looking to use gift cards instead of charging to the room. We were at the parks last week. Twice we pulled out our gift card to make ice cream purchases to be old that the "wifi" was down, and all that they could take was a credit card or charge to the room.. The restaurants likely have better connectivity and won't have this issue as frequently. I just wanted to share our experience from last week where we were unable to use the gift card and had to pay by credit card or do a room charge.

That seems a bit strange that they would be able to process a credit card but not a gift card.

 

[3threebabies]

I was notified Disney CHARGED $100 to my account. I was very clear in my previous post.

Not only was I clear in my previous post, but I didn’t yell. Credit cards are not charged immediately; it was a pending charge if it was initiated today. Another common term for pending charge is a hold. If you have no trip balance and you choose not too spend anything at Disney on your magic band, the pending charge will fall off your card at a time within your bank’s processing guidelines. While I realize it is a subtlety and you may not see the semantics, there is a significant difference between pending charges and processed charges.

 

[Farro]

Originally I was in the NBD camp but Disney be crazy on how they are opting to do holds.

That being said I do agree that you likely on average chargeback to the room is on a higher amount with MBs but other hotels out there have chargeback to the rooms for things like food, gifts, toiletries, drinks, etc. You simply tell them your room number or give them your key card and voila it's charged to your room.

To me it's the nature of Disney that would different on that aspect compared to other hotels since you're generally well away from the hotel when the charges are being applied to your room--you're in the parks or other hotels rather than being more or less in your hotel area which is more like how other hotels operate. You have more opportunities to charge back to your room on a more frequent basis I would say at Disney in comparison to other hotels and that by nature may mean your daily amount could be higher on average than how it is on average for other hotels.

So you're saying you agree with me.

 

[P'colaBeachBum]

Not only was I clear in my previous post, but I didn’t yell. Credit cards are not charged immediately; it was a pending charge if it was initiated today. Another common term for pending charge is a hold. If you have no trip balance and you choose not too spend anything at Disney on your magic band, the pending charge will fall off your card at a time within your bank’s processing guidelines. While I realize it is a subtlety and you may not see the semantics, there is a significant difference between pending charges and processed charges.

I think her post was clear as most of us understand it is a "pending" charge. It showed up before she was even at the hotel which is why she mentioned it. The "pending" thing has been mentioned throughout the thread.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

So you're saying you agree with me.

No...not really. But knowing how we usually communicate it's not really worth an explanation of what I was getting at beyond what was already written and explained already .

 

[Farro]

No...not really. But knowing how we usually communicate it's not really worth an explanation of what I was getting at beyond what was already written and explained already .

Yeah, we said the same thing.

Disney is unique in that people charge way more back to their room than they would a hotel in most other locations. In New York, I can't go out to dinner or shopping in a store and charge it to my hotel room. In Disney I can.
Therefore the number of holds at a Disney hotel can far surpass the hold at a non-Disney hotel.

 

[Iowamomof4]

All this talk of hotels and "industry standard" practices is so foreign to me. I never charge things to my room at hotels. If we eat in the hotel restaurant (which has possibly happened once in the last 20 years), we pay at the point of sale using our credit card. We don't purchase movies or anything over the tv (do they even still do that or am I dating myself? Honestly, I hardly ever watch the tv when we're at a hotel) and we never use any minibar services.

Disney is just a whole different animal for us. We charge lots of little things back to the room via Magicbands. I do carry a credit card with me, but I prefer not to carry gift cards because I would worry about losing them. We just use the gift cards to pay off the charges as we go, probably stopping by the front desk every other day or so. Tbh, we'll be charging a lot more this time because we won't be on a dining plan. It'll be interesting to see how it goes because we'll be spending a LOT more money during our trip than we usually do.

 

[Nancyg56]

Yeah, we said the same thing.

Disney is unique in that people charge way more back to their room than they would a hotel in most other locations. In New York, I can't go out to dinner or shopping in a store and charge it to my hotel room. In Disney I can.
Therefore the number of holds at a Disney hotel can far surpass the hold at a non-Disney hotel.

Agreed. I think that this is where Disney and anyplace else part ways. There are hundreds of POS spots that swiping a band will automatically charge a purchse back to the room. Anything from water or a Mickey Bar to a Disney Dooney to an 800 meal at any one of the many TS restaurants can be charged back. The impact on a CC or Debit card can be problematic.

I have no problem woth a CC hold for a specified amount. I have one Boeing placed on my card on Monday for a car rental that the insurance company has reserved for me. I would be unhappy if I had multiple holds per day on the card.

Bottom line is htat we all have our own comfort levels in this circumstance, and there is nothing wrong with questioning the method, worrying about the implementation, or avoiding it altogether until there is a decent amount of anecdotal evidence how WDW manages it. As I said earlier, I am just going to avoid it as much as possible becuase I avoid as much potential stress as possible whenever possible.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Yeah, we said the same thing.

Disney is unique in that people charge way more back to their room than they would a hotel in most other locations. In New York, I can't go out to dinner or shopping in a store and charge it to my hotel room. In Disney I can.
Therefore the number of holds at a Disney hotel can far surpass the hold at a non-Disney hotel.

Ugh you weren't understanding what I was referring to. I was referring to your comment of "Other hotels don't have magic bands where you charge everything - gifts, toiletries, drinks, dinners out - back to your room."

Disney is not different in that. All they did was make something (MBs) that has a longer range than probably what other hotels do to it so you could be in the parks and charge back to the room.

There are other hotel destination spots where you can be out at a restaurant or a store within the hotel's property (which doesn't just include the building in which the rooms are located in) and charge back to the room. I would hope you knew I wasn't referring to being at a random restaurant or shopping in a store in New York and charging back to your Hilton in Times Square....that would be totally strange.

I did agree with you that with Disney you may end up putting more charged back to your room. That's just not only what you were saying.

 

[Farro]

Ugh you weren't understanding what I was referring to. I was referring to your comment of "Other hotels don't have magic bands where you charge everything - gifts, toiletries, drinks, dinners out - back to your room."

Disney is not different in that. All they did was make something (MBs) that has a longer range than probably what other hotels do to it so you could be in the parks and charge back to the room.

There are other hotel destination spots where you can be out at a restaurant or a store within the hotel's property (which doesn't just include the building in which the rooms are located in) and charge back to the room. I would hope you knew I wasn't referring to being at a random restaurant or shopping in a store in New York and charging back to your Hilton in Times Square....that would be totally strange.

I did agree with you that with Disney you may end up putting more charged back to your room. That's just not only what you were saying.

I'm tired, so okay.

 

[gwynne]

All this talk of hotels and "industry standard" practices is so foreign to me. I never charge things to my room at hotels. If we eat in the hotel restaurant (which has possibly happened once in the last 20 years), we pay at the point of sale using our credit card. We don't purchase movies or anything over the tv (do they even still do that or am I dating myself? Honestly, I hardly ever watch the tv when we're at a hotel) and we never use any minibar services.

Disney is just a whole different animal for us. We charge lots of little things back to the room via Magicbands. I do carry a credit card with me, but I prefer not to carry gift cards because I would worry about losing them. We just use the gift cards to pay off the charges as we go, probably stopping by the front desk every other day or so. Tbh, we'll be charging a lot more this time because we won't be on a dining plan. It'll be interesting to see how it goes because we'll be spending a LOT more money during our trip than we usually do.

We fairly frequently charge dining back to our room at hotels outside of Disney. (Great steak place-adds to our hotel points...win/win.) We've never had holds related to our dining purchases. Sometimes one "hold" will pop up the day of check in in an amount close to the per night stay charge. But that's it.

I sort of wonder if folks who are getting hit with multiple "industry standard" holds outside of disney may be vacationing in popular spring break areas or the like.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I'm tired, so okay.

In fairness I did try to nip it in the bud:

No...not really. But knowing how we usually communicate it's not really worth an explanation of what I was getting at beyond what was already written and explained already .

You're right we should just let it go

 

[SaintsManiac]

I was notified Disney CHARGED $100 to my account. I was very clear in my previous post.

I got a notification, too, as I said above. When I logged into my Visa account it was only pending.

Did you log in and see it as a cleared charge?