Paying the bill (ick)

[Karel]

I have been saving like crazy for this trip and would like to pay most of it off right away. Can I link my magic band to my debit/credit card and then they will take the money right from my account?

Is there a down side to this? I know my husband will use the CC but I hate that feeling you get when the bill comes in.

The only thing to pay now is the food and the stuff. Maybe I'll do a little of both.

 

[PRomano]

can you buy gift cards ahead of time?

 

[bumbershoot]

Some people will buy a Disney giftcard and use that to pay. You can't put it right onto the account; you have to put the CC down for charging, and then you can use the GC to pay off the charges each night.

 

[Karel]

I have a bunch of Disney gift cards, some bought, some redeemed from points from various things. I was going to use them for breakfast or lunch.

I'm not sure if I ready to unload a ton of money on a big one though. A little nerve wracking, that thought.

 

[CookieandOatmeal]

I agree with the gift cards too. If your CC earns reward points, why not put your balance on there and pay it off once your bill comes in. If you have the money in the bank to pay it, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[Karel]

Spending large amounts of money makes me break out in a sweat. You are right about the reward points though. I'm trying to be good with the credit cards, because even thought the money is there, it is so easy to forget that the CC needs to be paid off. My husband doesn't quite get that! (I pay the bills so he never sees them)

 

[buzznina]

We try to pay as much as possible with GCs. We buy disney GCs from Target and save 5% by using their redcard.

 

[Networth]

Everything billed to the room and paid in one swoop with a CC which is than paid off the following day. Disney bill’s AMEX and Chase for everything (even souviners etc) as “travel” therefore I get 2-3x the points even for random items that have nothing to do with travel.

 

[ZoZo]

I have been saving like crazy for this trip and would like to pay most of it off right away. Can I link my magic band to my debit/credit card and then they will take the money right from my account?

I wouldn't recommend paying with your debit card (linked to your bank account). Hotels often place a "hold" on a certain dollar amount in your account with debit cards, "freezing" that amount from the time of check-in. They can place a hold on the amount they think you'll be spending, which can be a much higher amount than you plan to actually charge to your room.

Because this amount is held (basically "Frozen") from the day you check in (rather than when you actually check out), it can really goof up your available funds in your bank account. If you have automatic payments set up on certain dates, you might not have the funds available, and you end up with NSF (non-sufficient fiunds) fees.

I work at a credit union, and feel so sorry for our members who come in because they've been charged NSF fees, all because some merchant or hotel has placed an unexpectedly large hold on the funds in their account. Most peple don't realize these merchants are allowed to do this. Even if you spend $30 at a gas station, the merchant can place a hold on a much higher amount until the charge is posted!

So my advice is to charge to your room but pay by credit card. That's what gives you the most protection. You can pay your balance in full when you get your credit card bill. (I myself don't use Disney gift cards, for the simple reason that if you have to cancel your trip due to an emergency, all of your money -- potentially hundreds or thousands of dollars - is tied up in cards you can only use at Disney!)

 

[mb187143]

I wouldn't recommend paying with your debit card (linked to your bank account). Hotels often place a "hold" on a certain dollar amount in your account with debit cards, "freezing" that amount from the time of check-in. They can place a hold on the amount they think you'll be spending, which can be a much higher amount than you plan to actually charge to your room.

Because this amount is held (basically "Frozen") from the day you check in (rather than when you actually check out), it can really goof up your available funds in your bank account. If you have automatic payments set up on certain dates, you might not have the funds available, and you end up with NSF (non-sufficient fiunds) fees.

I work at a credit union, and feel so sorry for our members who come in because they've been charged NSF fees, all because some merchant or hotel has placed an unexpectedly large hold on the funds in their account. Most peple don't realize these merchants are allowed to do this. Even if you spend $30 at a gas station, the merchant can place a hold on a much higher amount until the charge is posted!

So my advice is to charge to your room but pay by credit card. That's what gives you the most protection. You can pay your balance in full when you get your credit card bill. (I myself don't use Disney gift cards, for the simple reason that if you have to cancel your trip due to an emergency, all of your money -- potentially hundreds or thousands of dollars - is tied up in cards you can only use at Disney!)

Every major hotel chain I know of does this, however Disney currently does not do this. We have a vacation account that we use for trips and always attach our debit card for that account to our room for charging. They have never put a hold for incidentals like major hotel chains do.

 

[HubbDave]

can you buy gift cards ahead of time?

Of course! Many outlets sell them alongside other GCs

Recommendation: if you have a Target Red Card (credit or debit card) you can purchase them at Target for 5% off

 

[sharona]

I wouldn't recommend paying with your debit card (linked to your bank account). Hotels often place a "hold" on a certain dollar amount in your account with debit cards, "freezing" that amount from the time of check-in. They can place a hold on the amount they think you'll be spending, which can be a much higher amount than you plan to actually charge to your room.

Because this amount is held (basically "Frozen") from the day you check in (rather than when you actually check out), it can really goof up your available funds in your bank account. If you have automatic payments set up on certain dates, you might not have the funds available, and you end up with NSF (non-sufficient fiunds) fees.

I work at a credit union, and feel so sorry for our members who come in because they've been charged NSF fees, all because some merchant or hotel has placed an unexpectedly large hold on the funds in their account. Most peple don't realize these merchants are allowed to do this. Even if you spend $30 at a gas station, the merchant can place a hold on a much higher amount until the charge is posted!

So my advice is to charge to your room but pay by credit card. That's what gives you the most protection. You can pay your balance in full when you get your credit card bill. (I myself don't use Disney gift cards, for the simple reason that if you have to cancel your trip due to an emergency, all of your money -- potentially hundreds or thousands of dollars - is tied up in cards you can only use at Disney!)

Excellent advice. So many people make this mistake due to some strange fear of using credit cards. They're so much safer than debit cards. Just pay the bill when it comes in!

 

[Kevin355]

I wouldn't recommend paying with your debit card (linked to your bank account). Hotels often place a "hold" on a certain dollar amount in your account with debit cards, "freezing" that amount from the time of check-in. They can place a hold on the amount they think you'll be spending, which can be a much higher amount than you plan to actually charge to your room.

Because this amount is held (basically "Frozen") from the day you check in (rather than when you actually check out), it can really goof up your available funds in your bank account. If you have automatic payments set up on certain dates, you might not have the funds available, and you end up with NSF (non-sufficient fiunds) fees.

I work at a credit union, and feel so sorry for our members who come in because they've been charged NSF fees, all because some merchant or hotel has placed an unexpectedly large hold on the funds in their account. Most peple don't realize these merchants are allowed to do this. Even if you spend $30 at a gas station, the merchant can place a hold on a much higher amount until the charge is posted!

So my advice is to charge to your room but pay by credit card. That's what gives you the most protection. You can pay your balance in full when you get your credit card bill. (I myself don't use Disney gift cards, for the simple reason that if you have to cancel your trip due to an emergency, all of your money -- potentially hundreds or thousands of dollars - is tied up in cards you can only use at Disney!)

Along this same line...I do fraud/forgery investigations. Not saying that WDW has thieves working at the resorts, but on a credit card, you are only liable for a certain amount of money...if you link a debit card, they can clean out your account. Not that that is going to happen, but use the CC as the card and pay down with the gift cards. Win-win situation for you.

 

[Haygar2]

I took several hundred dollars worth of gift cards with me on our last visit. I buy them a pay period at a time so it makes it a little easier on the checking account. I know well in advance when we are going. I use that time to buy the cards. Anyway...last time I had them load all of my gift cards onto my MB. I knew we would be spending all the gift card amount and then some. They used my gift card amount first and then charged my credit card. You have to make sure that you are going to spend all of your gift card amount. They will not issue you a refund on any unused amount. It wasn't an issue, for us, at all.

 

[Mousemommy1]

What we do is book the trip well in advance and then make monthly payments on the balance. We always have the resort portion paid off a couple of months before the trip.

As far as food, we use Disney gift cards and we buy them at Target using our red debit card and get 5% off. I never link my debit card to the magic band just because it's easier to deal with fraud on a CC than a debit card.

 

[CookieandOatmeal]

Spending large amounts of money makes me break out in a sweat. You are right about the reward points though. I'm trying to be good with the credit cards, because even thought the money is there, it is so easy to forget that the CC needs to be paid off. My husband doesn't quite get that! (I pay the bills so he never sees them)

You don't have to wait for the bill to come before paying your CC balance. Once it clears, you can put a payment through. I wait close to my due date every cycle so that I can get as much bank interest on my money as possible. It's not much but it's better than nothing. I do keep a very close eye on my spending though and track every transaction.

 

[Apopper74]

The biggest issue with using a debit card is Disney will hold the charges until you hit a limit ($1,500/value & Mod and $2,000/deluxe) or your last night. The issue with this is most if not all debit cards have a pre-set daily spending limit which may also include ATM withdrawals. The max really depends on your bank but the amount charged could very well exceed the maximum allowed causing the card to be rejected.

 

[thisismyusername]

Like most people on the Dis, our room charges are paid off before we go, and I save for the trip either by accumulating Disney gift cards or saving cash. If our trip is within 2 months, I generally go the gift card route and just pick up one or more each time I visit Target as my budget allows--if something happens and we can't go on our trip, or if our trip is cut short for some reason, I can always return any unused gift cards to Target and receive a refund.

But for trips that I am saving for that are more than 2 months away, I often just save cash in an envelope. I still convert it to Disney gift cards before we go because that 5% off is fairly significant, especially when you're taking along $2-3k in spending money (as we have for our long summer trips that are 2 weeks long). Our MBs are also tied to a non-debit CC for the reasons mentioned above, but no amount is ever charged to that CC since we are diligent with paying our charges off with the gift cards.

 

[buzznina]

I took several hundred dollars worth of gift cards with me on our last visit. I buy them a pay period at a time so it makes it a little easier on the checking account. I know well in advance when we are going. I use that time to buy the cards. Anyway...last time I had them load all of my gift cards onto my MB. I knew we would be spending all the gift card amount and then some. They used my gift card amount first and then charged my credit card. You have to make sure that you are going to spend all of your gift card amount. They will not issue you a refund on any unused amount. It wasn't an issue, for us, at all.

On the last 3 trips that we have went on, they would not take GCs to load into our account. They said that we can only make payments against an outstanding balance. In regards to debit cards, the time that I did use it, Disney did NOT put a hold on any amount of money and said that they would only take the money out of my bank once I got close to the resort limit.

 

[Accident]

The biggest issue with using a debit card is Disney will hold the charges until you hit a limit ($1,500/value & Mod and $2,000/deluxe) or your last night. The issue with this is most if not all debit cards have a pre-set daily spending limit which may also include ATM withdrawals. The max really depends on your bank but the amount charged could very well exceed the maximum allowed causing the card to be rejected.

I just want to second this one. You want to call your bank and let them know your traveling and if they can up the daily even if only for the length of your trip. It's really easy for a debit to get snagged as a security block or go over your daily limit. I believe disney can also charge you lower than their normal if you let them know at check in time when you set your pin and magic band for charges.

Also in 2014, I used a debit card and there was a lot of little charges.. Another trip it was the batches. I think it has to do with if they know you and the card so the first time it's going to small charge you. This is just speculation though, would be great if disney would post how they handle room charges with debit cards somewhere.