New Credit Card Authorization Holds

[jbethel77]

I wonder why the hold policy would end your spending. It will end how I choose to spend while in Disney, but my budget is the same whether I charge back to the room or pay as I go. Are you saying that if you cannot charge back to the room without holds applied, you will simply not shop

If your budget is ex:$5000, but Disney puts $2,500 of your available money tied up in holds, which may or may not fall off in a timely manner.. this substantially changes your spending.
That’s IF the policy works the way some are reading it, including myself. Hopefully it works differently.

 

[Nancyg56]

If your budget is ex:$5000, but Disney puts $2,500 of your available money tied up in holds, which may or may not fall off in a timely manner.. this substantially changes your spending.
That’s IF the policy works the way some are reading it, including myself. Hopefully it works differently.

I am saying why not just stop charging back to teh room? If you pay as you go, either with cash, your debit of credit card, or a gift card, you will not see any holds on your account. My discretionary spending budget is set before I leave home, so charging to my room did not make me spend more than if I just pay as I go along. FOr those who prefer not to carry cash and who do not want to use a debit card, a gift card works.

I am one who is not going to have holds placed on my account other than the $100 placed when I do online check in. After that, no more charging back.

 

[jbethel77]

I am saying why not just stop charging back to teh room? If you pay as you go, either with cash, your debit of credit card, or a gift card, you will not see any holds on your account. My discretionary spending budget is set before I leave home, so charging to my room did not make me spend more than if I just pay as I go along. FOr those who prefer not to carry cash and who do not want to use a debit card, a gift card works.

I am one who is not going to have holds placed on my account other than the $100 placed when I do online check in. After that, no more charging back.

Gotcha... that’s what I plan to do as well. Unless I see some different reports.

 

[Wood Nymph]

We got back from our trip last night and we checked our credit card account this morning. We had paid off our room balance one week before we arrived on February 27th, so there wasn't a balance due upon check in. We used our MB's for a few purchases, all under $40, and paid each day's charges off with a gift card by the end of the day. We never carried a balance overnight.

Disney put the $100 credit card hold on our arrival day, Feb 27th. The hold is still showing on our credit card account, today, March 2nd, even though we paid off our daily charges with a gift card before the end of each day. We had used the MB's to charge to the room a few times but I always went to the concierge to pay it off before the end of each day. We didn't make any charges to the room at all yesterday. I used the gift card instead.

I am surprised to see the credit card hold on our account even though we never carried an overnight charge. None of the charges to the MB exceeded $40 dollars, either.

 

[jbethel77]

We got back from our trip last night and we checked our credit card account this morning. We had paid off our room balance one week before we arrived on February 27th, so there wasn't a balance due upon check in. We used our MB's for a few purchases, all under $40, and paid each day's charges off with a gift card by the end of the day. We never carried a balance overnight.

Disney put the $100 credit card hold on our arrival day, Feb 27th. The hold is still showing on our credit card account, today, March 2nd, even though we paid off our daily charges with a gift card before the end of each day. We had used the MB's to charge to the room a few times but I always went to the concierge to pay it off before the end of each day. We didn't make any charges to the room at all yesterday. I used the gift card instead.

I am surprised to see the credit card hold on our account even though we never carried an overnight charge. None of the charges to the MB exceeded $40 dollars, either.

Thanks for sharing!
Just to clarify, because you paid off your balance every day... Disney never put any other holds besides the initial $100?

 

[MinnieMSue]

I will continue to watch this thread but think we will always take gift cards or credit cards to pay as we go instead of charging to the room. We take them with us anyway in case there is a systems problem. That should just keep me with a $100 hold the whole trip. We rarely charge to the room anyway - only if sat the kid wants an ice cream while we are waiting for the parade I let her go to the stand to use magic band. I can just as easily give her a hurt card. Might even get a couple of the flower and garden ones on wrist bands to use for convenience at the water park for example.

 

[Wood Nymph]

Thanks for sharing!
Just to clarify, because you paid off your balance every day... Disney never put any other holds besides the initial $100?

Correct. We only have one hold of $100 dated 2/27/19. I think the CM told us that they would be placing the $100 hold on our account when we checked it, which is what they did.

 

[Wood Nymph]

I will continue to watch this thread but think we will always take gift cards or credit cards to pay as we go instead of charging to the room. We take them with us anyway in case there is a systems problem. That should just keep me with a $100 hold the whole trip. We rarely charge to the room anyway - only if sat the kid wants an ice cream while we are waiting for the parade I let her go to the stand to use magic band. I can just as easily give her a hurt card. Might even get a couple of the flower and garden ones on wrist bands to use for convenience at the water park for example.

That is what we did. We only used the MB's at the pool and once in the parks.

 

[P'colaBeachBum]

They are sending all room charges through on day 5. Waiting until the last night on trips longer than 5 days will no longer work.

We will be there only 4 nights.

Why not simply add the Gift Card at the start of your trip? We have done this numerous times in the past and any creidt left over either ends up back on the gift card or refunded to the credit/debit card on file, we have had both ways happen.

We pay our room off before arriving with GC's. We go often enough that we know roughly how much we spend everyday. I would much prefer to use enough GC's to pay down the balance and not have any left over. We pay off our credit card every month and I was concerned about them adding that $100 hold everyday.

 

[cmwade77]

I wonder why the hold policy would end your spending. It will end how I choose to spend while in Disney, but my budget is the same whether I charge back to the room or pay as I go. Are you saying that if you cannot charge back to the room without holds applied, you will simply not shop etc?

I have read accounts from guests who charged back more than they had available, so I believe that Disney had finally reached their threshold for bad accounts. I do not blame them, but I have chosen to just avoid any unpleasant consequences over holds policy.

That is simple: I am not bringing backup payment methods into the parks with me, that means if I can't charge to the room due to how they are placing holds, it won't get bought.

As I said, if they use normal, industry standard practices, which would allow Disney to avoid bad cards, that would be fine, but the way they appear to be handling holds will cause problems as the holds become excessive.

 

[cmwade77]

I am saying why not just stop charging back to teh room? If you pay as you go, either with cash, your debit of credit card, or a gift card, you will not see any holds on your account. My discretionary spending budget is set before I leave home, so charging to my room did not make me spend more than if I just pay as I go along. FOr those who prefer not to carry cash and who do not want to use a debit card, a gift card works.

I am one who is not going to have holds placed on my account other than the $100 placed when I do online check in. After that, no more charging back.

As previously stated, Because I am not going to be carrying around extra payment methods with me.

 

[cmwade77]

Thanks for sharing!
Just to clarify, because you paid off your balance every day... Disney never put any other holds besides the initial $100?

Nope, the way I read, they put the initial $100 hold, then as soon as you have spent $100, they will put a new $200 hold on the card, which is the $100 you already spent and then another $100, once you go through that $100 they will put a new hold for $300, which is the first $200 that was spent plus another $100.

Once you reach day 5 they will process the current balance at which time the holds may or may not have dropped off already. So if you spent $100 each day, they would charge $500 and there would potentially be the following holds:
$100
$200
$300
$400
$500
$600
Total holds: $1,000
Total money/balance tied up after day 5: $1,500

If they followed industry standards, either the previous day's holds would be cancelled out or the additional authorizations would only be $100 and would be cancelled out prior to the day 5 charges being made.

 

[Farro]

So we don't go until May 2020 and I'm sure this will all be sorted out by then...hopefully?

If the policy stays as is, our plan will be to still keep a credit card on file for any incidentals we charge back to room (because I know me, I will want to pay for something with my magic band ), but use another card to pay for the big purchases such as dinners and drinks! Or a costly souvenir.

 

[Sajchinook2015]

I wonder if anyone checking in can ask if we can bump the hold to let’s say$200.00. This way the people who go down each day and pay off balance of room charges with Disney gifts cards would only have the initial$200.00 hold. For me the $100.00 is too low. For 4 people that would maybe cover 1 meal.

 

[cmwade77]

I wonder if anyone checking in can ask if we can bump the hold to let’s say$200.00. This way the people who go down each day and pay off balance of room charges with Disney gifts cards would only have the initial$200.00 hold. For me the $100.00 is too low. For 4 people that would maybe cover 1 meal.

Maybe this is just another way to encourage the dining plan......make it a pain to charge meals and you will have people buy the dining plan just to avoid this mess.

 

[Farro]

Maybe this is just another way to encourage the dining plan......make it a pain to charge meals and you will have people buy the dining plan just to avoid this mess.

That would be silly. All anyone has to do is pay with a credit card a the time of meal instead of using magic band.

 

[Nancyg56]

Maybe this is just another way to encourage the dining plan......make it a pain to charge meals and you will have people buy the dining plan just to avoid this mess.

I doubt that. I believe it is in response to a series of bad debt left behind by people who used their bands indiscriminately charging back more than they had available.

 

[cmwade77]

That would be silly. All anyone has to do is pay with a credit card a the time of meal instead of using magic band.

The point is A LOT of people don't want to carry debit or credit cards around the parks, as they would then need to also carry ID, they want to go out with nothing but their magic band and to some degree that makes perfect sense, as that is how Disney billed the magic bands when being introduced.

 

[cmwade77]

I doubt that. I believe it is in response to a series of bad debt left behind by people who used their bands indiscriminately charging back more than they had available.

I would agree if they followed standard practices for credit card holds, but they are going way overboard on the holds and that is why I think there is more to it.

 

[Roxyfire]

The point is A LOT of people don't want to carry debit or credit cards around the parks, as they would then need to also carry ID, they want to go out with nothing but their magic band and to some degree that makes perfect sense, as that is how Disney billed the magic bands when being introduced.

At this point I think using mobile payment methods are just as easy, if not easier. I've already got my phone anyway and there's no prompt for an ID so that's what I'll primarily use.