Using magicband to charge...

[ClosetDisMom]

I have been watching threads here and online regarding the change in Disney’s policy regarding how they handle changers to magicbands. I was wondering if anyone has recent updates about the changes to the policy?

For example, when the policy changed, people reported that their cards were being charged a holding fee of $500 per night, on top of that any charges were being pushed through daily, essentially double charging. Many people commented that this was a glitch and that it would work itself out in a few weeks/months.

My family has always linked our magicbands to our debut card and used gift cards we saved up pre-Trip to pay off our room balance at the end. This worked great at BWV, in January. The change in policy happened in Feb/Mar, though.

So, is Disney still doing a daily holding fee and charging your account for funds used daily? Have any of you DVC fans linked your debit card recently and experience the new policy?

I am debating getting a credit card for the sole purpose of linking to our magicbands to keep the double charges from affecting my bank account. Any suggestions?

 

[Chuck S]

I always use a credit card for hotel stays anywhere, many hotels do put some type of pre-approval hold on a card, and I wouldn't want my ATM/Debit card with a hold on the cash I have in the bank.

My understanding of the current policy for DIsney is that they will pre-authorize a hold for $100, if you use that up, it is billed out and then another $100 is pre-authorized and so on...the issue is when the authorization holds are being cleared by the credit card processing companies and the banks the cards are drawn upon. I'm not a fan of the continual hold thing, but my first experience will it will be next month, so I'll have to see if there are any negative implications for me. I would far rather that they do a single authorization for $1500 (the old resort credit limit) and then do a reauthorization if you used that up. If Disney sees a big drop in spending, or even a lot of people NOT using MBs for charging and just direct charging with a credit card at the time of purchase, I think they'll quickly, and maybe quietly, change the policy...Disney, like other venues, like having that MB spending profile for their guests...and probably more for frequent guests, like DVC members.

 

[ClosetDisMom]

...If Disney sees a big drop in spending, or even a lot of people NOT using MBs for charging and just direct charging with a credit card at the time of purchase, I think they'll quickly, and maybe quietly, change the policy...Disney, like other venues, like having that MB spending profile for their guests...and probably more for frequent guests, like DVC members.

That would be nice. My family doesn’t use credit cards, so I have to mull this one over. We go back in September, so I have some months to figure out what is next. I am debating opening acredit card just for Disney because of this policy. Would the Disney Visa be a good option?

 

[Chuck S]

That would be nice. My family doesn’t use credit cards, so I have to mull this one over. We go back in September, so I have some months to figure out what is next. I am debating opening acredit card just for Disney because of this policy. Would the Disney Visa be a good option?

Disney Visa will give you some cash back on a card you can use at Disney, but there is an annual charge for the card. If you just want a credit card solely for DIsney, and intend to pay it all off whenever you use it, I'd check with your bank or credit union to see if they have a credit card with no annual fees. My Credit Union has a cash back credit card with no annual fees.

 

[bobbiwoz]

Disney Visa will give you some cash back on a card you can use at Disney, but there is an annual charge for the card. If you just want a credit card solely for DIsney, and intend to pay it all off whenever you use it, I'd check with your bank or credit union to see if they have a credit card with no annual fees. My Credit Union has a cash back credit card with no annual fees.

Is there an annual charge for the regular Disney Visa? I do not think so, but maybe it changed.

Just checked with husband, no annual fee.

 

[Chuck S]

Is there an annual charge for the regular Disney Visa? I do not think so, but maybe it changed.

Just checked with husband, no annual fee.

The regular VISA is free, the Premier Visa has an annual fee.

 

[mort1331]

Just got back. No holding fees on my card. Went in last night and payed off balance no issues at all.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

That would be nice. My family doesn’t use credit cards, so I have to mull this one over. We go back in September, so I have some months to figure out what is next. I am debating opening acredit card just for Disney because of this policy. Would the Disney Visa be a good option?

There are other cards that you can get more benefits back with. I think on the budget board there's a thread on credit cards where people report on what they've been finding. I'd probably recommend something that gives you straight cash back should you want. The Disney card gives you rewards you can use to pay down your bill but a straight cash back card can be used anywhere. And there are ones that give you higher rewards with no annual fee vs the Disney cards.

 

[bumbershoot]

Would the Disney Visa be a good option?

From our experience, the Disney card isn’t easy-breezy to get.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

Another decent free card is discover. The first year you have it, they match all cashback earned. So if you get $500 cashback over the year, they give you an extra $500 at the end of the year. They also have periodic 5% cashback on certain charges. Right now they are doing gas. I know Dave Ramsey would not like this! But if you pay it every month, it is a good card. Debit cards scare me a bit personally. But that is just me.

Just to add... we have never put a card on our account at disney. Are they making you put one on now? We just do not use the magic bands for charges and use gift cards in the parks instead.

 

[amymgould]

We went mid-April and were concerned about this. I automatically get an email when anything is charged to my credit card that is $100 or more. So I got the initial $100 hold. The first two days, I paid down our balance with gift cards before it reached $100. Then we went to Epcot and spent a lot at Flower and Garden lol and I had an email that the credit card had been charged again. However, my husband was able to pay that with gift cards so they must have put it in as a hold and not an actual charge. We then moved to BWV halfway through. I went to pay down the balance on the first night and the CM said I don't need to do that and that the charges will just "sit" there until we check out. So allow I received more emails from the CC company, we didn't pay off the balance again until the night before we left and all was fine. It's really annoying though that there is such confusing and inconsistent info out there!

 

[curias]

In March I was unsure of this new procedure. I pay my bill in cash, and they don't like to put cash on your account. So instead I used the cash to buy gift cards daily. I would put $200 on a card. I carried a bit of cash incase I needed more or had the option of using my magic band. This worked great. I didn't have to deal with loose change and a bill at the end of stay. Plus, we started collecting gift cards from all of the parks and found some cool ones.

 

[Maistre Gracey]

We have a Disney Chase card (actually still says “Day 1” on it). Never thought twice about plopping down the card for charges. So what?? We pay the bill in full every month.
We pay a $49 fee for the Premier card.
For that annual fee we make out pretty well. The reward dollars cover both my wife’s and my annual silver AP, our TIW card, and generally an expensive signature dinner with all the accompanying adult beverages.
There may be better cards out there, but not enough so as to possibly take a credit rating hit. Length of time having a card means a lot.

 

[Deb & Bill]

We were just there and I get messages from Chase whenever I get charged over $50 for a purchase (I've gotten lots of fraud attempts and had to replace my debit card at least twice in the past year). Each day we were there, I got a message telling me what was charged to my card that day. BUT, when I looked at my statement on line, it just shows a single charge, the final amount for the trip.

 

[Pkltm]

We were there for 10 days in April. We had 2 rooms, on my room we put our Amex on the room, they did the initial hold and then each purchase added that amount or addition hold- example breadsticks at the food court, hold for $3, we did not reach the max for the resort, but policy is on day 5 they charge your card, - so they charged it and put on another hold, but the first holds didn't come off, we ended up with $1200 hold on our card plus the charges. The hold came off a few days after we returned home.

On the other room, the same type of thing where the holds kept going on, but the credit company (Mastercard) actually flagged the continuous small holds as fraud and froze their card. The hotel staff was very rude to the members of the room and despite them having another card to pay with did not put the charging ability back on the room. They had even had to speak to mastercard to verify the holds. It was a rough experience with the front desk staff, we won't stay there again. My MIL ended up in tears on the first - the only tears on vacation should be tears of joy!

Our next trip in September I think we will skip the CC on the room. I know it will save us money as I will have to stick to my budget lol

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

We were there for 10 days in April. We had 2 rooms, on my room we put our Amex on the room, they did the initial hold and then each purchase added that amount or addition hold- example breadsticks at the food court, hold for $3, we did not reach the max for the resort, but policy is on day 5 they charge your card, - so they charged it and put on another hold, but the first holds didn't come off, we ended up with $1200 hold on our card plus the charges. The hold came off a few days after we returned home.

On the other room, the same type of thing where the holds kept going on, but the credit company (Mastercard) actually flagged the continuous small holds as fraud and froze their card. The hotel staff was very rude to the members of the room and despite them having another card to pay with did not put the charging ability back on the room. They had even had to speak to mastercard to verify the holds. It was a rough experience with the front desk staff, we won't stay there again. My MIL ended up in tears on the first - the only tears on vacation should be tears of joy!

Our next trip in September I think we will skip the CC on the room. I know it will save us money as I will have to stick to my budget lol

This entire thing is like Disney has never seen a credit card before nor know what to do with them. It's crazy - adding a hold everytime you bought anything? Absolutely crazy.

 

[Pkltm]

This entire thing is like Disney has never seen a credit card before nor know what to do with them. It's crazy - adding a hold everytime you bought anything? Absolutely crazy.

In all of our Disney trips we have never had service like this. We have stayed at multiple resorts on all three levels. It just was a bad experience. We will just skip this one going forward.

 

[eva]

We were just there and I get messages from Chase whenever I get charged over $50 for a purchase (I've gotten lots of fraud attempts and had to replace my debit card at least twice in the past year). Each day we were there, I got a message telling me what was charged to my card that day. BUT, when I looked at my statement on line, it just shows a single charge, the final amount for the trip.

We have two Chase Disney Visa accounts. One card is solely for online purchases. The other for everything else. We had that $50 email alert too. Then we had a fraudulent charge of $49 go through. Of course they took it off our account. But now DH has it at $1 for both card. Can’t hide anything from DH anymore. Having two cards works great for us. If one gets compromised, we have another one to use while waiting for the new cards. We use our cards for everything and DH pays them both online every Saturday morning. Every year we normally have well over $1,000 in rewards.

 

[Maistre Gracey]

We have two Chase Disney Visa accounts. One card is solely for online purchases. The other for everything else. We had that $50 email alert too. Then we had a fraudulent charge of $49 go through. Of course they took it off our account. But now DH has it at $1 for both card. Can’t hide anything from DH anymore. Having two cards works great for us. If one gets compromised, we have another one to use while waiting for the new cards. We use our cards for everything and DH pays them both online every Saturday morning. Every year we normally have well over $1,000 in rewards.

Except two cards for me would be two annual fees.
The only reason I have the (premier?) card is because I get extra rewards... unless that’s changed??

 

[eva]

Except two cards for me would be two annual fees.
The only reason I have the (premier?) card is because I get extra rewards... unless that’s changed??

One of our cards is premier. The other is not. We use the premier one for the majority of charges. The regular one is set up just for our online purchases. Of course that one gets compromised the most.