Room Charge Policy Change (Maybe)

[disneynutz]

According to the front desk at BWV, all resorts now charge your room charges to your credit card on file every 2 or 3 days even if you haven't hit the $1500 limit. This makes it difficult to pay your room tab with a rewards or gift card. They will reverse the credit card charge but state that it may take 6 weeks to get your money back.

***Update***

Due to wdrl's post I decided to investigate further. Now the night front desk crew and the suit on duty at BWV tells me that our account was CC charged because they accidently got our account mixed up with someone with the same last name.

They state that the deluxe room limit is now $2000 and that they will charge to your CC on file if you are closer than 20% of the new limit or if you charge tickets. They said that day crew needs additional training and that other guests have asked the same question but they didn't know where the wrong info was originating from. The suit says that she will talk to the CM who I originally talked to.

I recommend that everyone ask when checking in what the CC charge policy is and don't expect the same answer from all CM's.

 

[DebbieB]

This makes sense, if someone has a credit card issue, this will catch it quicker before they ring up a larger balance. I stayed at a Doubletree in Texas for 12 nights in June for work, they charged it every 5 nights rather than on check-out.

When I was there last week, I just used my gift cards directly so I didn't have to worry about going to the front desk to "apply them" to the balance.

 

[disneynutz]

This makes sense, if someone has a credit card issue, this will catch it quicker before they ring up a larger balance. I stayed at a Doubletree in Texas for 12 nights in June for work, they charged it every 5 nights rather than on check-out.

When I was there last week, I just used my gift cards directly so I didn't have to worry about going to the front desk to "apply them" to the balance.

I like the printed record that the room charges provide.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

When I was there last week, I just used my gift cards directly so I didn't have to worry about going to the front desk to "apply them" to the balance.

I've mostly been doing that too. It's just easier.

 

[wdrl]

According to the front desk at BWV, all resorts now charge your room charges to your credit card on file every 2 or 3 days even if you haven't hit the $1500 limit. This makes it difficult to pay your room tab with a rewards or gift card. They will reverse the credit card charge but state that it may take 6 weeks to get your money back.

We just stayed at PVB for four nights and AKV-Kidani for 12 nights. At no time was our charge card billed as frequently as may have happened in your case. For our stay at PVB, our credit card was not billed until we checked out on the fifth day. Our AKV stay was technically two linked stays of eight and four nights. Our credit card was billed when the first eight-night stay was completed, and then it was billed again when the four-night stay was completed. We definitely did not get billed every 2-3 days.

When I checked in at AKV, I specifically asked the front desk CM how they would handle our linked stays. I was primarily concerned about being able to stay in the same villa for the entire 12 nights, but I also asked other things, including how the billing would be handled. The CM said that we would billed at the end of the first 8-night stay, then again at the end of the second 4-night stay, or whenever our outstanding balance approached $1,500. She made no mention of us being billed as frequently as every two or three days.

I've been reading your comments about some of the issues you've had during your recent stay and if seems like if it wasn't for bad luck, you'd have no luck at all. From getting clean villas, getting room requests, housekeeping schedules, receiving emailed copies of our bills, and now having issues with the billing frequency, it seems like our experience was vastly different than yours.

 

[disprincess2213]

YES!!! This happened to us on our most recent trip but it was every night that they charged the card!! We were so shocked when we looked at our bank account and saw hundreds have been deducted!! We meant to pay with Disney cards and had every intention of settling up at the end with them but it was too late. We decided to save it for our next trip. It just stinks to have to go to the front desk every single day to have them charge a gift card so the credit card doesnt getcharged.

 

[disneynutz]

We just stayed at PVB for four nights and AKV-Kidani for 12 nights. At no time was our charge card billed as frequently as may have happened in your case. For our stay at PVB, our credit card was not billed until we checked out on the fifth day. Our AKV stay was technically two linked stays of eight and four nights. Our credit card was billed when the first eight-night stay was completed, and then it was billed again when the four-night stay was completed. We definitely did not get billed every 2-3 days.

When I checked in at AKV, I specifically asked the front desk CM how they would handle our linked stays. I was primarily concerned about being able to stay in the same villa for the entire 12 nights, but I also asked other things, including how the billing would be handled. The CM said that we would billed at the end of the first 8-night stay, then again at the end of the second 4-night stay, or whenever our outstanding balance approached $1,500. She made no mention of us being billed as frequently as every two or three days.

I've been reading your comments about some of the issues you've had during your recent stay and if seems like if it wasn't for bad luck, you'd have no luck at all. From getting clean villas, getting room requests, housekeeping schedules, receiving emailed copies of our bills, and now having issues with the billing frequency, it seems like our experience was vastly different than yours.

On a positive note housekeeping did service our room yesterday!

 

[wdrl]

YES!!! This happened to us on our most recent trip but it was every night that they charged the card!! We were so shocked when we looked at our bank account and saw hundreds have been deducted!! We meant to pay with Disney cards and had every intention of settling up at the end with them but it was too late. We decided to save it for our next trip. It just stinks to have to go to the front desk every single day to have them charge a gift card so the credit card doesnt getcharged.

Were you using a credit card or a debit card? Which resort was this at?

 

[RachaelA]

They never charged our card on file. We didn't go down to pay down the balance with gift cards until day 5 (and then the night before we checked out). We were there last week.

 

[jekjones1558]

They never charged our card on file. We didn't go down to pay down the balance with gift cards until day 5 (and then the night before we checked out). We were there last week.

We were at BWV last week and our credit card was not charged mid-stay either. Glad because I did use gift cards for most of the bill.

 

[Dean Marino]

We ran into this Policy Change JUST about when it was implemented (April 2015). Fortunately, the policy was so NEW that the WL managers allowed me to put my Rewards Card Dollars onto my bill as a "positive balance" anyway.

However - given the hoops that now exist for Reward Cards? Our likely course of action will be to KEEP our Chase Disney Card, but to put all charges on our Capitol 1 card (1% cash back right to the balance - no hoops). Sad, in a way, as FUNCTIONALLY the Chase Disney Card has been made less "use-attractive" . I wonder if Chase and Disney can resolve this? They don't HAVE to - it just seems like it would be in their mutual interest....

 

[Anal Annie]

I don't like this. I also always bring a stash of gift cards to apply to our room charges every few days. Wouldn't be so bad if they didn't make you have charges first. I usually wait a few days to let things accrue before I bother finding time to do it. I would love to just be able to pre-apply $500 worth or whatever at check-in. I don't want to have to make time to go by the front desk every day and this ruins the whole "just use your magic band" notion. Silly. Wonder if it's just for the holidays since they're so busy & have so many more people than usual there?

 

[MrPTato]

Like a prior posted mentioned, I wish you could just front load gift cards/ redemption cards when you check in and then not have to worry about anything. We always spend more than we have in cards so the credit balance would only last a couple days. A couple trips ago, the CM at the front desk had no idea how to reverse charges, nevermind get balance off our cards.

 

[disneynutz]

Update, see post #1

 

[wdrl]

They state that the deluxe room limit is now $2000 and that they will charge to your CC on file if you are closer than 20% of the new limit or if you charge tickets.

I recommend that everyone ask when checking in what the CC charge policy is and don't expect the same answer from all CM's.

I also heard that the charge limit was increasing from $1,500 to $2,000.

 

[CarolMN]

We were at the BWV 12/3 - 12/11, so 8 nights. Housekeeping was done exactly as we expected. Full cleaning on Day 4 and T&T on day 8. Credit card (Disney VISA) was not charged until the night before we checked out. ME letter delivered as expected on day before check out.

I am at a loss to explain why some of you had different experiences - are your credit cards on some type of "no-fly" list?

 

[btk2333]

At BCV 11/4-11/11 paid our balance with gift cards on 11/10- thankfully due to a Disney computer error they applied my giftcards twice so I got double value on those gift cards

 

[Sammie]

Bill.....Bill, haven't you learned by now that you are on Disney's naughty list.