News Disney to pilot electronic-only transactions at its resort hotels

[lazyboy97o]

Ok, so what impact then? There really isn’t any. And what fees and constraints other than those international travellers always factor in? There is nothing new here so really no new impact. The net additional impact of this trial is essentially zero. So again, what does foreigner have to do with this issue?

Post #9 is an example. Not everyone is coming from Canada.

This might be an issue for international guests. It's common (at least in my country) to buy cash dollars when the exchange is rate is decent and to use cash rather than a credit card to pay better tax on the money exchange rate (also because this way you control the exchange rate you're paying, which you can;t do with a credit card), as international credit cards tend to input a steeper tax on dollar purchases

 

[Coaster Lover]

Credit cards only transactions are just too much big brother for me.

They will still take gift cards... you can anonymously buy gift cards in cash without the risk of big brother...

 

[peter11435]

Call me old fashioned, but I have a serious distrust of electronic transactions and DIS IT. I will use my plethora of gift cards purchased with cash and Disney Rewards points if this gets beyond the "test program" phase.

If you are using Disney gift cards and reward points than you are already utilizing electronic transactions and relying on DIS IT.

 

[Coaster Lover]

And I have a question - not limited to Disney.

Grab a $10 bill out of your wallet. Look front, lower left.....

"This note is legal Tender for all debts, public and private".

A NUMBER of business seem to want to be "cashless". But I would suggest that they are currently overruled by the Federal Government.
Consider - who wants to be first in line for a Federal Lawsuit when that US currency is offered, and rejected?

Now - no effect on us, we have all those plastic payment methods. Nope, just CURIOUS if a business can make this stick?

Many, MANY places will not accept bills larger than a $20. Generally the accepted (but never posted) reason for this is a concern of a major loss if they accept a counterfeit $50 or $100... couldn't any vendor just make the same concern regarding ANY denomination of cash?

 

[WWWD]

Well, damn, now my wife will know exactly how many beers I order at the pool bar.

 

[flynnibus]

Ok, so what impact then? There really isn’t any. And what fees and constraints other than those international travellers always factor in? There is nothing new here so really no new impact. The net additional impact of this trial is essentially zero. So again, what does foreigner have to do with this issue?

The impact is they will have cash taken away from them as a per transaction option. No longer can they give suzzie a 20 and sent her to the qsr counter. No longer will any party member be able to pay w/o a mickeyband if they don't have a credit card. If they had opposition to using the purchasing with mickeybands this will push them towards it.

No all international credit cards handle fees and costs the same. Not every member of a party carries a credit card at all times.

This will push people to use magic bands- or try to ration themselves with gift cards,etc

Many people are still opposed to using credit on all purchases for their own reasoning

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Exchange rates fluctuate. I know people who like to stock up on US cash when it's low, so that they have it when they're ready to travel to the states. What international guests pay when they arrive vs when they book may not be so favourable. The opposite can also be true, but going cashless means they have less control over this variable.

 

[WDWTrojan]

While I can see not accepting cash at quick service or ODF carts, it's crazy to me that they won't accept cash for table service restaurants. There's many international guests who change X amount of currency for USD and dedicate that to incidentals during the course of their trip, otherwise their card companies will charge a high conversion rate. Also, there are many underbanked or folks who might not have big credit limits that want to make a purchase. Imagine sitting down to dinner, the check is presented and ta da you have no way to pay the bill. Are they really going to deny your cash?

 

[AEfx]

Call me old fashioned, but I have a serious distrust of electronic transactions and DIS IT. I will use my plethora of gift cards purchased with cash and Disney Rewards points if this gets beyond the "test program" phase.

As you should. That's why all this talk about worrying about cash theft makes me giggle - I worked in credit card fraud and the amount that a FOTL employee could skim in cash without getting caught is absolutely not even the tiniest drop in a gigantic bucket of the amount of credit card fraud that goes on at WDW (or anywhere else) daily.

Thankfully as a consumer you are largely protected - though WDW certainly takes losses on chargebacks due to KTTW/Magic Band charges. When it is lump sum transactions like that, card companies don't take "well their Magic Band was scanned" as evidence of anything. It's meaningless to investigators eyes, so Disney has to eat it.

The reason they are doing this is two-fold - one, to eliminate the processes and man-hours needed to manage cash/cash handling procedures, and two, I would suspect, to be able to truly track a guests spending in its entirety. They also know that since most people don't do it to begin with, there isn't going to be a lot of consumer objection to it.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Is this really news, and surprised it has not been tried before? Cant remember the last time I paid in cash for anything at disney (or most other places).

I mostly use cash for transactions under $20 at WDW or anywhere in the USA. I can't imagine using a CC every time I want a bottle of water.

I guess that makes me a luddite.

There's many international guests who change X amount of currency for USD and dedicate that to incidentals during the course of their trip

I do this for every trip I make outside of Canada.

 

[flynnibus]

eliminating cash drawers takes a lot of overhead out of your system. Move to magicbands, and you move a lot of risk for employee fraud out of your POS network too. Move more transactions to Magicband, and you improve your batch processing with the banks.

All of this is little bits that add up to optimizing the POS network for Disney. Take such a change to property wide.. and the saving really start to pile up.

I have to imagine the biggest resistance to doing this outright is the transient nature of alot of guests on property. Unlike a cruise ship where everyone has committed and signed up for a duration... WDW has a lot of 'just here for a bit...' type customers who haven't committed to WDW as the centerpiece of their trip. To those customers, such constraints seem like burdens. But in the same breath... I can't believe they haven't forced the topic already. All cashless minus DisneySprings. Call it now.. by 2020?

 

[Animaniac93-98]

The other big difference between WDW and the Cruise ships is that the cruise passengers have mostly paid for everything up front. They don't need to use cash every time they want to get something to eat, for example.

WDW deals with thousands of guests every day who stay off site and need to pay for everything that isn't admission (parking, food, drinks, merch etc). As much as Disney would want to go cashless, I can't imagine trying to tell these people that they only take credit/debit.

What they could do is incentivize people to pay without cash by offering things like single-day dining plans.

 

[Goofyernmost]

They will still take gift cards... you can anonymously buy gift cards in cash without the risk of big brother...

I would think that we all need to get over that. They have things in space above that can see if we have a drop of spaghetti sauce on our ties. The time to worry about credit cards following you are long gone. If you carry a cell phone somebody's big brother is completely aware of every step you make. You can no longer even think about being paranoid, because it is a known fact. You can't be paranoid is what you think is the truth.

 

[Jeff456]

I don't like using cash in the UK if I can help it but when you're abroad I prefer a mixture of cash and credit cards without foreign transaction fees.. Not everyone can get a credit card and being stung with sky high transaction fees every time you used it would really affect some. I know you can credit it to the room and presume they would refund you in cash if you didn't spend it all?

 

[WDWTrojan]

I don't like using cash in the UK if I can help it but when you're abroad I prefer a mixture of cash and credit cards without foreign transaction fees.. Not everyone can get a credit card and being stung with sky high transaction fees every time you used it would really affect some. I know you can credit it to the room and presume they would refund you in cash if you didn't spend it all?

You could credit the cash to the room then refund you what you don't use, but what about the tens of thousands of guests per day that aren't staying on property?

 

[Santa Raccoon 77]

In the scandanavian countries that are largely cashless there is a growing number of people that are starting to push back against this eay of thinking. I can't see the whole resort going full cashless anytime soon. It may happen but not as quick as some are predicting.
I could see DL going cashless sooner as they don't have the same percentage of international traveller.

 

[alphac2005]

While I certainly use cards and an electronic wallet, we primarily use cash as it's an incredibly effective budgetary tool. Having been an owner of a business for quite a long time, having guests pay for everything including the smallest of transactions with credit cards really eats into margins, but a huge outfit like Disney most likely sees the numbers that they'll eat the lower margins on small transactions because people on average spend more when using credit versus cash. As it was mentioned before, there can be major savings not having employees having to process and account the cash behind the scenes, but many large multinationals are eliminating those positions and using machines to do that job making the labor cost a moot point.

 

[I am Timmy]

It's not stupid. Just wait until the grid goes down, you won't be able to use any cards, but I bet there will still be places that will accept cash.
Your Dad will know where those places are.

That is the reason I stock up on liquor (we don't drink), and chocolate. They will be the new forms of currency if the grid goes down. ok, I'm kidding. But, we do still use cash for tips. Will this effect all the carts, too?

 

[MinnieWaffles]

This is kind of a "So?" for me as at home I usually use my contactless debit card for most purchases. I forgot I even still have some cash on me! Buses here have been cashless for the past few years and it's fine, you just buy an Oyster card and top it up or use a contactless card.

 

[Nubs70]

What has ‘foreigner’ got to do with anything about this? I can use my Visa, MasterCard or American Express anywhere in the world that they operate, which is most countries. And think about, when Americans come up to Canada you are the foreigners and have no problems using your cards up here.

The exchange rates are things you always have to factor in when travelling internationally, regardless of your nationality. So nothing new here. Have done it every trip to Disney and elsewhere. I don’t see any new issue.

I hope you have no foreign transaction fee type card