Credit Card Hold- any update?

[Ariel1986]

Has anyone stayed recently or is there now- for longer than a few days- and can retale how the charging now works with the new policy from their own experience?

I’ve read many headache inducing stories of how rolling $100 holds are placed after charging over $100 which then take time to be released- so essentially you end up (if you spend say $700 over your trip) with $700 in rolling holds and then the actual charge of $700. Of course the holds will be eventually released, but you may well have to make sure you have double what you planned to spend available on your credit card.

I’ve also read how some people have had a hold of the same amount placed on their card for a single charge to the room over $100, placed at the same time as charging it. For example if you went to California Grill and charged $220, a $220 hold is also placed (and for some people alongside a new $100 hold) and yet the card at 5 days (or at the end of the trip) has been charged what you’ve spent yet the holds are still there. This all seems like madness and totally puts me off using my magic band to charge.

I’m going by peoples posts on other forums & FB- and screenshots of holds & charges here, not my misunderstanding of their policy (which isn’t that clear- or appearing to align with what actually is happening).

I haven’t read or found any updates on this since April/May though. Anyone stayed recently or there now and can share their own experience?

Thanks.

 

[Ricky Spanish]

We are at All Star Music right now.
Have been here 9 nights.
When we checked in we were asked if we would like to put a credit card on file for charges.
I said no and had no problems, but we are also not using our magic bands for any expenses.
The only thing we are getting charged daily for is parking which we will pay for when we check out.
Funny story....when we checked in, the CM said, " there is a $13 a night parking fee. Is that okay?"
I said, "No".........and there was dead silence between both of us.
And she kept on checking us in but the mood had changed.

 

[Ariel1986]

We are at All Star Music right now.
Have been here 9 nights.
When we checked in we were asked if we would like to put a credit card on file for charges.
I said no and had no problems, but we are also not using our magic bands for any expenses.
The only thing we are getting charged daily for is parking which we will pay for when we check out.
Funny story....when we checked in, the CM said, " there is a $13 a night parking fee. Is that okay?"
I said, "No".........and there was dead silence between both of us.
And she kept on checking us in but the mood had changed.

Thanks. I know just not charging is an option. Just a shame as I liked the convenience.

 

[threvester]

I stayed at POP 5/9-5/19. They were still putting the holds on then. I like to pay with gift cards so I asked them how I should go about it, and even they werent sure. They told me I should pay at the end of day 4 and day 9 and I should have nothing charged to my card....well they were wrong, I payed at the end of day 4 and at the end of day 5 they rang up the charges for that day. So if you plan on paying off the charges, do it at the end of day 5 and 10.

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

Stayed at POR the week before Memorial. It is a non-issue (unless you are using a debit card - which you should never do for a hotel and/or incidentals)

They put a $100 hold. You exceed that in charges - they take the overage plus $100. So:

$100 hold > you spend $150 on dinner > then there is an additional $150 held (You're now tying up $250 vs the $150 you spent) on and on - Keep in mind that there is never a charge that goes through on your credit card until you check out (It's a Pre-Auth). So at worst you tie up an additional $100 over and above what you spend. Once the charge is put through, it should wipe out the holds (It did for me - but I guess cc's can be different on how they process this).

Edited to say: Keep in mind that the initial $100 hold pretty much goes towards the parking fee.

 

[Janir]

We are at All Star Music right now.
Have been here 9 nights.
When we checked in we were asked if we would like to put a credit card on file for charges.
I said no and had no problems, but we are also not using our magic bands for any expenses.
The only thing we are getting charged daily for is parking which we will pay for when we check out.
Funny story....when we checked in, the CM said, " there is a $13 a night parking fee. Is that okay?"
I said, "No".........and there was dead silence between both of us.
And she kept on checking us in but the mood had changed.

Well she asked if it was ok. Who wants to pay an extra $13 if you're going to make it optional? ;P

 

[Ariel1986]

Stayed at POR the week before Memorial. It is a non-issue (unless you are using a debit card - which you should never do for a hotel and/or incidentals)

They put a $100 hold. You exceed that in charges - they take the overage plus $100. So:

$100 hold > you spend $150 on dinner > then there is an additional $150 held (You're now tying up $250 vs the $150 you spent) on and on - Keep in mind that there is never a charge that goes through on your credit card until you check out (It's a Pre-Auth). So at worst you tie up an additional $100 over and above what you spend. Once the charge is put through, it should wipe out the holds (It did for me - but I guess cc's can be different on how they process this).

Edited to say: Keep in mind that the initial $100 hold pretty much goes towards the parking fee.

Thanks for this. That’s what I originally thought it was- but I’ve read reports where the “tied up” money is still tied up at the end of the trip when they then charge- so you need double the amount available. Being from the UK & coming over for 2 weeks- and potentially charging $1000+ had looked like I would have all my charges tied up as holds PLUS the full charge then applied. That’s where the double amount came from. I guess I’ll just have to be prepared with a higher limit CC card rather than the one I wanted to use.

 

[threvester]

Stayed at POR the week before Memorial. It is a non-issue (unless you are using a debit card - which you should never do for a hotel and/or incidentals)

They put a $100 hold. You exceed that in charges - they take the overage plus $100. So:

$100 hold > you spend $150 on dinner > then there is an additional $150 held (You're now tying up $250 vs the $150 you spent) on and on - Keep in mind that there is never a charge that goes through on your credit card until you check out (It's a Pre-Auth). So at worst you tie up an additional $100 over and above what you spend. Once the charge is put through, it should wipe out the holds (It did for me - but I guess cc's can be different on how they process this).

Edited to say: Keep in mind that the initial $100 hold pretty much goes towards the parking fee.

They clear the account and charge the card every 5 days at the values anyway, so not when you checkout. I cant speak for the other tiers of resorts.

 

[wdwfan22]

we have found them to be very inconsistent with this practice. Our recent stay at the Beach Club they were putting the charges through every 3 days no matter what the dollar amount was. I think it just depends on the resort.

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

They clear the account and charge the card every 5 days at the values anyway, so not when you checkout. I cant speak for the other tiers of resorts.

Maybe. I spoke with the Front Desk when I checked in and asked a few question. One of them was - If I wanted to settle my account with an alternate form of payment (Gift Cards), how would I go about doing that. The reply was that my credit card would be charged early the morning of checkout day, and if I wanted to do that, it was best to settle up the night prior.

It's possible, because my stay was exactly 5 nights. So it would coincide.

 

[Hakunamatata]

We are here now. I still cant figure out the hold process. So ive started charging everything but one off snack items on my credit card. We are AP holders and TiW holders so we have to get those cards plus ID out so I figured I would just start using the credit card. Much easier to keep up with what we are spending that eay.

 

[Ariel1986]

We are here now. I still cant figure out the hold process. So ive started charging everything but one off snack items on my credit card. We are AP holders and TiW holders so we have to get those cards plus ID out so I figured I would just start using the credit card. Much easier to keep up with what we are spending that eay.

I feel like unless they change the process this is what we're going to end up doing. I don't want to have to keep checking all the different holds to make sure it adds up right.

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

I feel like unless they change the process this is what we're going to end up doing. I don't want to have to keep checking all the different holds to make sure it adds up right.

You can also load up on Gift Cards. One or two charges is always better than 50 small ones. You can register the GC in case it gets lost and block it or transfer the funds to another card. It basically becomes a pre-loaded Disney Credit Card for the trip - and you don't have to worry about banks or holds.

 

[unmitigated disaster]

We are here now. I still cant figure out the hold process. So ive started charging everything but one off snack items on my credit card. We are AP holders and TiW holders so we have to get those cards plus ID out so I figured I would just start using the credit card. Much easier to keep up with what we are spending that eay.

Thanks for this. That’s what I originally thought it was- but I’ve read reports where the “tied up” money is still tied up at the end of the trip when they then charge- so you need double the amount available. Being from the UK & coming over for 2 weeks- and potentially charging $1000+ had looked like I would have all my charges tied up as holds PLUS the full charge then applied. That’s where the double amount came from. I guess I’ll just have to be prepared with a higher limit CC card rather than the one I wanted to use.

When Disney releases the unused hold amount (where I work it would be during the night audit process) their system tells the bank that they're releasing the unused hold. At that point it's on the bank, and can take 24- 36 hours (or longer at holiday time) for the unused amount to become available. Why, in this day and age, it can take that long I have no idea.

Something you can also do is swing by the front desk and pay amount owed nightly.

 

[Hakunamatata]

When Disney releases the unused hold amount (where I work it would be during the night audit process) their system tells the bank that they're releasing the unused hold. At that point it's on the bank, and can take 24- 36 hours (or longer at holiday time) for the unused amount to become available. Why, in this day and age, it can take that long I have no idea.

Something you can also do is swing by the front desk and pay amount owed nightly.

But why after 7 days do I still show an amount owed for my magic band charges on MDE if they are pinging my credit card through whatever process they have?

 

[Ariel1986]

When Disney releases the unused hold amount (where I work it would be during the night audit process) their system tells the bank that they're releasing the unused hold. At that point it's on the bank, and can take 24- 36 hours (or longer at holiday time) for the unused amount to become available. Why, in this day and age, it can take that long I have no idea.

Something you can also do is swing by the front desk and pay amount owed nightly.

I know that's the usual, but I have had experience in the past with 4-7 days at a (non Disney) hotel from their hold... and once, a full 30! On the same card. With the 30 day hold both the bank and the hotel said it was the other ones responsibility to release and neither could do anything about it

 

[Ariel1986]

I understand why Disney is doing this, but why they couldn't of made a simpler system is beyond me. Why not just have one higher hold on check in- say $200 or $250 and then the charging the balance every 5 days rather than this rolling hold thing. I don't mind the practice of a hold on check in, but constant holds for any spend over $100- is just confusing and silly.

Or even if they're that worried about people not paying (if that's the reason for this) why not just clear the balance every night?

 

[Hakunamatata]

Or even if they're that worried about people not paying (if that's the reason for this) why not just clear the balance every night?

This would be much easier in my opinion.

 

[Bartledvd]

Sadly this as a uk visitor is making magic bands useless aside from opening our door and FP terminals. Really loved the ease of the last few years just charging everything to the room and clearing the balance with our card or cash once the night before checkout.

Just going to be much more simple to use our clarity card for everything and bring a small amount of cash for things like tipping bell service.

 

[DisAl]

When we were there in March it worked like this:
I had a "consolidation of current charges" pending charge of $473 on my card one night while the individual charges that made up that $473 were all still showing as individual pending charges, PLUS another $100 hold after the "consolidation". So at that point I had $1046 of pending charges on my card for what would eventually be a $473 charge. And they were doing this EVERY NIGHT, not every 5 days. I finally disabled the charge card notification on my phone because they were waking me up at 2:00 a.m. every morning when they did their overnight processing.
What really does not make sense is that they go ahead and pass along each charge as it is made as a pending charge and then later combine all the pending charges and charge the combined charges as a NEW pending charge. Why combine them at all? Since the charges are already pending on your card why not just leave them that way and let them go through? As long as your charges keep going through they could just hold on to that first $100 hold until the end for a security buffer. That would be so much easier than the messy process they have now.
It also makes it impossible to keep up with your individual charges because once they are consolidated you don't see the individual charges any more. So, if you don't already save every receipt for your credit card you should because you won't have a record of individual charges, just the consolidated charges!
You will have NO record of individual charges on your credit card bill if you need to go back and check something.