Is this normal regarding Disney Hotels and credit cards?

durangojim

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We just spent a week at the Riviera and used our Disney Visa. Throughout our stay pending charges were placed daily on the card for what we bought with our magic bands. Today we left early around 6am to drive back home. Around 9am I received a notification that I needed to stop by the front desk to check out. That’s never happened to me before. So I called the Riviera number and was placed with some general CM who told me the card had been declined and that I’d need to come back and pay the balance. At this point t we were over 200 miles away so I politely declined and told her I’d call Chase. They told me that Disney had tried to charge the entire amount for what they had already pended as a new transaction. I called Dosney back who got me in touch with some actually at the Riviera who did this was standard policy and that the pending charges would fall away after a couple of days. I said then that they were charging me twice and that someone would need double the limit on their card for the amount they actually wanted to spend on a Disney vacation. She told me she would talk to her manager and call me back but she never did. Does this make any sense to anyone here?
 

Muffinpants

Well-Known Member
This was in the news awhile ago and a big issue for folks thus many stopped charging back to the room. They also put a bunch of holds per amount spent.
 

RememberWhen

Well-Known Member
I thought/hoped this had been resolved, but it sounds like it wasn’t. Our last trip we mostly used gift cards or were mobile ordering, so we didn’t have any issues. We’ll have to stock up on gift cards before our next trip.
 

Virtual Toad

Well-Known Member
That sounds like an absolutely absurd policy for a company that likes to tout its “legendary” customer service. Further evidence of how little Disney thinks of its own guests?

After our past two stays, they were somehow unable to charge us for parking using the same credit card we used to pay for the room.

So they billed us months later with a form letter— informing us we were delinquent on an unpaid debt which could be turned over to a collection agency!

All for THEIR inexplicable failure to charge us for their greedy parking fee, unlike just about every other reputable hotel chain on the planet, who seem to be able to handle simple billing tasks like these without issue.

Kind of makes you wonder….
 

Patcheslee

Well-Known Member
Sounds like the same as when they first started the new policy years ago. The only loophole I found for a ton of holds was to go pay the balance down during our trip. Then the holds wouldn't start again unless we went past the initial balance.
 

ohioguy

Well-Known Member
Holds are just that, "holds". Once a charge comes through for the original hold, on the same transaction number, the hold charges fall off and the real charge takes its place. This is what happens when you "pay at the pump" at any gas station, for example. Disney must be using another transaction number making it look like two transactions instead of one. That is ridiculous!
 

nickys

Premium Member
Holds are just that, "holds". Once a charge comes through for the original hold, on the same transaction number, the hold charges fall off and the real charge takes its place. This is what happens when you "pay at the pump" at any gas station, for example. Disney must be using another transaction number making it look like two transactions instead of one. That is ridiculous!
I think the issue is that they have this string of holds on your room account, and instead of putting all those through, they put one final actual payment through covering the total of all those holds. And the holds can still be sitting there.

I’m sure banks probably have limits as to how many transactions can go through per day to one company, for safeguarding reasons maybe. Like if I try and buy multiple items from Amazon all paid separately there probably comes a point when my card issuer says “Stop”.

It’s c**p for guests though. I seem to remember something that this was all to stop people defaulting on their room account?

Would paying the account down every couple of days solve this? Not really. If you used the same card, those holds could still be sitting there. So you might need to use a different card to pay it down - and that comes to the same thing. You need a credit of double the amount you actually spend.

Its definitely something Disney should and could easily fix. Instead of holds they could simply run the card every time your account balance reaches a certain amount. Sorted!
 

Patcheslee

Well-Known Member
I think the issue is that they have this string of holds on your room account, and instead of putting all those through, they put one final actual payment through covering the total of all those holds. And the holds can still be sitting there.

I’m sure banks probably have limits as to how many transactions can go through per day to one company, for safeguarding reasons maybe. Like if I try and buy multiple items from Amazon all paid separately there probably comes a point when my card issuer says “Stop”.

It’s c**p for guests though. I seem to remember something that this was all to stop people defaulting on their room account?

Would paying the account down every couple of days solve this? Not really. If you used the same card, those holds could still be sitting there. So you might need to use a different card to pay it down - and that comes to the same thing. You need a credit of double the amount you actually spend.

Its definitely something Disney should and could easily fix. Instead of holds they could simply run the card every time your account balance reaches a certain amount. Sorted!
My credit union has a 5 transaction limit per day.
When we had to deal with the multiple holds on a 9 day, paid off room balance on day 4 with GCs, around 4-500 in charges. The initial holds were still there the remaining days, but more holds didn't take place until we passed the 4-500 again. It at least kept some money from being held, but wasn't fun to deal with.
Wish we could just put GCs on our file and be done with it.
 

dreday3

Well-Known Member
Yeah. Last trip we only charged small things to the room (coffee, etc.) because I didn't want to worry about holds.
Google Pay actually worked out great. Deducts straight from your debit/checking account. We would bring a credit card for dinner/big purchases to get points.
 

Atlantix2000

New Member
Cruise lines, hotels, and any other business that builds up charges on an account will all generally work this way. There's a very simple reason. Money. Anytime a business swipes your card, they get charged fees and there are 2 types of fees: a per transaction fee (usually a fixed amount for every swipe) and a percentage of the amount charged that gets paid to the processing company (visa, discover, etc). A company as large as Disney can negotiate lower rates but they still pay something. The business places holds for every charge so they know you have the funds to cover those charges. However, they don't want to pay all those transaction fees. So they add up all the charges and only submit one real charge so they only "swipe" your card once at the end of your vacation. Yes, the business cancels the holds at the same time but your credit card company doesn't remove them immediately. This is because the business could realize they made a mistake and resubmit those charges within X days and the credit card company would be on the hook because they already confirmed the charges were under your credit limit. Your credit card company's policies that you agreed to when opening the card define X. Unfortunately, this does mean there is an X day period when your vacation is using twice your credit limit. It's not recommended (for credit score purposes) to use a high percentage of your credit limit, so as long as you keep your charges under half your limit, this process would never actually cause your card to be denied. If you do have to charge over half your limit, consider making a payment to the card to lower the usage.
 

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