Why it is good to use your room key for charges.

[goofy!]

Just got back from a quick, last minute 5 night trip to Universal. We stayed at PBH. Absolutely great trip. The PBH was stellar as usual.

We usually use the AAA Travel Visa for all our meals and incidentals. However, since I booked this trip less than a week before we left, there was not enough time to load the AAA card before we left.

So, on this trip, we used our room key for all our charges. And while we never had a problem before, we had several charging problems this time. Thank goodness we were using the room key as reversing the charges was completely painless.

The main incident was with the Hard Rock Cafe.

We had lunch there one day. 5 people, lunch was $97+change after tip.

Upon our return to the room, was I ever surprised to see a Hard Rock charge of $281+ when I checked our account on the TV. Mind you, this was not a mistake of the cashier mistakenly swiping our card several times and charging 3 separate bills of $97.xx to our room. This was a single 3x charge of $281.xx.

I quickly grabbed the receipt and walked down to the front desk. The front desk immediatedly issued a credit to my room.

If this had been charged to my credit card, it would have been a much more involved process to have the charges reversed. Now it was completely painless, involved only a simple credit to our room bill before we checked out.

We also had a few incidents where the clerks at Universal double swiped our card, causing two identical charges to our room. Once again, with a single phone call to the front desk, the removed the extra charges.

PBH was very professional and courteous and corrected the problems in less than 5 minutes each time. They issued a credit for the single overcharge and just deleted the extra charges on purchases. It definitely saved me hours of hassle with the credit card company disputing charges.

Moral of the story - it is easier to use your room key to charge as you can immediately see all your charges for the day and easily resolve any issues that might have occured with a simple phone call to the front desk.

AND...

Always check your account on the TV nightly to make sure everything is in order.

 

[iuki]

Great info. Thanks.

However, I didn't realize you could check your account on the TV.

How does that work?

iuki

 

[kellymonaghan]

I tend to use my credit card, mainly so I can keep better track of where my money goes on Quicken (restaurants, lodging, souvenirs, etc.). The problem I have with using the card key is that everything winds up on my credit card bill as one humongous charge from the hotel, so if I want to break it down for Quicken, it's a hassle.

And in all the 15 years I've been going to Universal, I've never had anything like what you describe happen. I wonder if, for some unknown reason, it might be the key card that caused it? Maybe it didn't read well, so clerks mistakenly swiped it more than once? Just a guess.

Still, you have hit upon a real advantage in using your key to charge. Thanks for the tip.

 

[goofy!]

I tend to use my credit card, mainly so I can keep better track of where my money goes on Quicken (restaurants, lodging, souvenirs, etc.). The problem I have with using the card key is that everything winds up on my credit card bill as one humongous charge from the hotel, so if I want to break it down for Quicken, it's a hassle.

And in all the 15 years I've been going to Universal, I've never had anything like what you describe happen. I wonder if, for some unknown reason, it might be the key card that caused it? Maybe it didn't read well, so clerks mistakenly swiped it more than once? Just a guess.

Still, you have hit upon a real advantage in using your key to charge. Thanks for the tip.

We have been going for years too and have never had something like this happen.

I definitely think the double charges at the stores were the fault of the key cards. One of the clerks mentioned that the computers were down, so all room keys and cc had to be called in. The Portofino front desk told us that the key cards can be sensitive to multiple swipes.

However, the Hard Rock thing is what was most concerning. This was not a problem with the card. At first glance, this appears to be more fraud than mistake. And from other sources, it is not the first time it has happened over there.

The difference is that with the multiple swipes, it was easy to see. For instance, I had 2 identical charges from the Cat in the Hat store for $53.xx. It was easy to see what had happened and easy to fix. The Portofino just deleted one of the charges.

The Hard Rock charge came over in a single charge for 3x our bill. I am under the assumption that this had to be purposely entered this way to come over as a single transaction. Perhaps the waitress made a mistake in entering our bill, perhaps not. I do know the Hard Rock manager requested copies of our bill to investigate further - so not something minor like just a double swipe of the key card.

And to fix it, the Portofino had to issue a credit, not just delete one of the charges. Since it was a single charge, if this had been on our credit card, we would have had to dispute the amount, send in copies of the receipt, etc. Still fixable, but a pain in the you-know-what.

As for tracking the expenses, I just get the print out at check-out. Not quite as easy to download into Quicken, but you do have record of all your individual charges.

 

[phamton]

One advantage to the hotel key is if you lose it, you can immediately cancel it and get a new one. It can be a real hassle, if you lose a regular credit card. You can cancel a credit card but then you have to wait to get a new one which can be a problem if that is the credit card you were planning on using on that trip. I use my bank credit/debit card and very seldom have another credit card with me. If I were on vacation and lost my bank cc, I'd be in a lot of trouble. If I lost my hotel key, i could just get another one and wouldn't have to cancel my bank cc.

 

[goofy!]

One advantage to the hotel key is if you lose it, you can immediately cancel it and get a new one. It can be a real hassle, if you lose a regular credit card. You can cancel a credit card but then you have to wait to get a new one which can be a problem if that is the credit card you were planning on using on that trip. I use my bank credit/debit card and very seldom have another credit card with me. If I were on vacation and lost my bank cc, I'd be in a lot of trouble. If I lost my hotel key, i could just get another one and wouldn't have to cancel my bank cc.

One only has to look up at the net under Hulk to see how easy it is to lose things out of pockets.

 

[PatsGirl]

It appears by this thread that you can use your hotel key card to dine at Hard Rock. Can you use it at all the restaurants and shops at CityWalk? I'm taking my DS, his girlfriend, DD and myself to UO in February and was going to allow them (DS and GF) to dine out each evening by themselves. Originally I was going to give them cash each day but I'd rather just tell them what their limit is and to use the key card -- kills too birds with one stone, no chance of losing the cash and almost no chance they'll use the cash to buy souveniers instead of eating. Thanks. Brenda

 

[goofy!]

It appears by this thread that you can use your hotel key card to dine at Hard Rock. Can you use it at all the restaurants and shops at CityWalk? I'm taking my DS, his girlfriend, DD and myself to UO in February and was going to allow them (DS and GF) to dine out each evening by themselves. Originally I was going to give them cash each day but I'd rather just tell them what their limit is and to use the key card -- kills too birds with one stone, no chance of losing the cash and almost no chance they'll use the cash to buy souveniers instead of eating. Thanks. Brenda

Yup, you can use your hotel card everywhere in City Walk and the parks.

But caution, you can also use the key card to buy souvenirs

Just make sure you tell them upon check-in which cards you want charging privileges on. They will then authorize x amount (it was an extra 1500 for us at the PBH) over and above what they authorize for the room.

 

[PatsGirl]

thanks Goofy! I wonder if they'll put a max amount on the kids' cards. When we did the Disney cruise I could put $100 on the kids' cards and when it was gone, well, it was gone... I'd like to do the same for DS's card, give him and GF $100 every few days for dinner (they can't drink so $30-$40/night should do) and give my daughter $50 for the five days for souvies. Any idea if they can/will do this? Thanks. Brenda