charging to room question

[Canadave]

Are you able to 'prepay' to your room account?
I understand that they have a credit card on file and when you reach a certain amount spent on your MagicBand, they charge the credit card. I would like to put a pile of money on our account ahead of time so that they never have to use our card. I know that I can go to reception every night to pay down the balance, but it would be nicer if I could just plunk down a couple thousand ahead of time and not worry about it!

 

[Anthony1971]

As far as I am aware you can not have a negative balance on your account I asked once when I had some gift cards. The easiest way to achieve this is to buy Disney Gift cards and pay as you go using the gift cards or applying to your room bill every few days or at least the night before you check out. You will need a credit card or Debit to have charging rights to your room.

 

[winnieofpooh]

Unfortunately I don't think that's possible. Depending on if you're staying value/mod/deluxe, there are different spending limits. We stayed at AKL in the winter and we stopped by the desk twice to pay off our balances, once in the middle of the trip and once the evening before checkout. We had gift cards so didn't want them actually charging the CC on file.

 

[Babsy]

It has been a few years now, but my Mom used to do this on every trip back in the day. Credit cards were not as commonly used for everything back then and she didn't even own one. She would give them an amount of cash that would be credited to her account, then she would be refunded any balance at the end of the stay. I'm not sure if they still do this though. Cash is not the King it once was.

Perhaps if you don't give them a credit card at all, they will then use this method? Or perhaps they just won't accept cash anymore?

Alternatively, you can carry cash, traveller's cheques or gift cards and pay as you go without charging to the MB.

 

[Canadave]

Using gift cards is exactly what we're hoping to do. I'm from Canada, and if we use prepurchased gift cards, we only pay the exchange rate. Once it goes on a credit card, we get dinged with currency exchange charges (around 4%!!) on top! I just hope I don't miss stopping in to pay our balance!

 

[Hopefully]

No. We were not able to have a credit balance in October. Nothing is “on” your Magic Band. It is on your room Account. You have to have a credit card on file to charge to your room. You can pay a balance with gift cards once the charge is on your account. If they did charge your credit cards they can reverse the charge at the Desk.

 

[stinkpickle]

You may want to call the resort and ask them directly. The policies seem to be a little different each time we go. In reality, maybe they aren't, but I don't mess with it much. During the last couple of trips, they would charge my card in $500 increments, charge it for any remaining balance at checkout, and then use our gift cards to credit it back.

 

[monorailsilver]

They wouldn’t let us just add the remainder of the GC when we paid off our balance. We just went every other day to pay. Our last day I paid somemmore wiht my Disney visa since I had money coming in that day and I got a credit on my Disney visa.

 

[Canadave]

yes, I know it's not 'actually' on the Magic Band....I just use the Band a LOT for purchases and food lol
Well, hopefully if they have to 'refund' the credit card, I don't get hit with 'currency' or 'exchange' charges!

 

[verleniahall]

they will not allow you to have a 'credit' on your account

i woudl reccomend paying off your charges either daily or every other day with cash or GC

have a great trip!

 

[MaryLovesPoohBear]

It has been this way for a while. You can't leave money or a gift card to pay for charges to your room.

We've asked about it numerous times. And the answer is always "no."

 

[Canadave]

Thanks all...I guess that pretty well settles it....a nightly visit to the Front Desk!

 

[bumbershoot]

I know that I can go to reception every night to pay down the balance, but it would be nicer if I could just plunk down a couple thousand ahead of time and not worry about it!

You just have to go each night to pay it down. They don't allow you to do what they used to do.

I would just use the giftcards as you go.

Perhaps if you don't give them a credit card at all, they will then use this method? Or perhaps they just won't accept cash anymore?

You literally cannot set up charging to the room without a debit or credit card. We once had a credit b/c of problems with the room, and before we could access it we had to set up room charging with our credit card. They have no way to set it up without a card.

 

[Bound and Rebound]

I wish they would let you put gc on your room. In August my hubby called with a $1000 gc to pay for the room balance of about $600 before we started our vacation, it wasn’t until later that day when we were on the gift card website to combine other cards that we realized the lady took the whole card balance and not just what was owed to the room. They could not give us back the card because it was taken back to $0 so they put it all on our room instead! It was so so nice to not have to worry about paying daily with the gc. We had tried this before with another stay and knew this is not how it was ever done, as they always said no. But this trip was very nice to use the MBs for charging and knowing it was all coming off our gc. Just wonder why they can’t put gc on the room, we did still have a cc linked, just never used it.

 

[Babsy]

What do people without a credit card do? Just pay as you go, I guess?

 

[dansdad]

What do people without a credit card do? Just pay as you go, I guess?

Yes. Without a valid credit card in MDE you can't charge back to the room.