Question about MagicBands and Charging Privileges

[larathydo]

Hi there,

I've been researching this for some time, but all I've been able to find is contradicting information so I'm wondering if anyone has any personal experience on the following matter:

We're staying at Animal Kingdom Lodge Kidani Village this upcoming January via DVC. There will be a total of 9 of us (three families).

In the past, my experience with resort charging (prior to MyMagic+) was using the Keys to the World cards with my own family. Both adults (my Fiancee, Myself) could technically have charging privileges assigned to these cards and basically all purchases would be funneled off of a single Credit Card we associated with our room at check in. This of course was all based off the premise that we were a SINGLE family staying in a SINGLE room using a SINGLE credit card between us, simple.

Thing is, my understanding is that DVC resorts such as Kidani still allow charging to a credit card much the same as my prior experience (cool!), but seeing as though we are multiple families staying in a single villa, we're curious if we can assign different credit cards to different magicbands but all within the same hotel room reservation.

Here's an example:

Adult, Family 1 - Charging enabled to "Credit Card 1"
Child, Family 1 - No charging privileges

Adult, Family 2 - Charging enabled to "Credit Card 2"
Adult, Family 2 - Charging enabled to "Credit Card 2"
Child, Family 2 - No charging privileges

Adult, Family 3 - Charging enabled to "Credit Card 3"
Adult, Family 3 - Charging enabled to "Credit Card 3"
Child, Family 3 - No charging privileges (or gift card balance, see below)
Child, Family 3 - No charging privileges

Is this possible? I'm basically asking if we can associate MagicBands on an individual level to a particular credit card, resulting in the net effect of allowing each person on the hotel reservation access to their own credit card throughout their stay via their MagicBands.

And for Bonus Points, Family 3 above is interested in giving one of their children a small allowance to buy something with their magicband (just to try it out). I presume it's possible to purchase a gift card and then apply that balance to that child's magicband which only he can use, correct?

Thanks so much in advance!

 

[Victoria]

Nope. 1 room, 1 card for charging. It's very annoying. You are also forced to put a card on the room reservation for charging purposes. You can however turn off room charging privileges for all but 1 of the bands. Prior to Magic Bands you could opt out of room charging altogether. Now for whatever reason you can't anymore. I often share a room with my sister and we are never able to participate in touch to pay with our MBs because we can't associate different credit cards with each band.

 

[Rob562]

Hmmm... Not sure about the above poster, but you *can* assign different credit cards to different people on the same reservation. You can't do it during online checkin, you have to do it in-person at the front desk but it can be done. (And if the CM at the desk says they can't or don't know how to do it, ask for a supervisor) All it takes is a few minutes setup time for each person.

There was a time years ago where very few CM's knew how to do this, but in preparation for the MDE roll-out they upgraded the front desk systems and it became easier to do and more CM's learned how to do it.

As for the gift card idea, that'd be tricky and it's probably not worth it to try. Might be best to just give them the gift card to use. A few facts that I *do* know:
-While you can't get a *higher* charging limit, they can alter the charging limit to be lower.
-A charge account can be opened with cash and *maybe* pre-charged to a gift card (though I'm not totally sure of that part).

Instead of a gift card, you might try to open the account with the equivalent amount of cash, which will set the limit to that amount. Just be aware that this process is even less known than multiple credit cards, so you'd almost definitely need a manager.

-Rob

 

[FrostyNaples]

Hmmm... Not sure about the above poster, but you *can* assign different credit cards to different people on the same reservation. You can't do it during online checkin, you have to do it in-person at the front desk but it can be done. (And if the CM at the desk says they can't or don't know how to do it, ask for a supervisor) All it takes is a few minutes setup time for each person.

There was a time years ago where very few CM's knew how to do this, but in preparation for the MDE roll-out they upgraded the front desk systems and it became easier to do and more CM's learned how to do it.

As for the gift card idea, that'd be tricky and it's probably not worth it to try. Might be best to just give them the gift card to use. A few facts that I *do* know:
-While you can't get a *higher* charging limit, they can alter the charging limit to be lower.
-A charge account can be opened with cash and *maybe* pre-charged to a gift card (though I'm not totally sure of that part).

Instead of a gift card, you might try to open the account with the equivalent amount of cash, which will set the limit to that amount. Just be aware that this process is even less known than multiple credit cards, so you'd almost definitely need a manager.

-Rob

That doesn't make any sense.

When you charge to your room, you charge to your room. At the end of your stay, they take the balance charged to the room, and charge your attached credit card.

You are never directly charging to your credit card, so how could they possibly setup individual 'bands' to charge to different 'cards'?

I don't see it working that way at all.

Charge to Room >>> Room to Card (at checkout).

Now if each family has their own room, thus own reservation, THEN each family has a different credit card on file. It would function in that manor.

 

[FrostyNaples]

Because they can charge your card at any time. So you can set up multiple cards to a room and those cards are charged immediately.

My parents were offerred the option to add a card when they checked in, since there was a third person over 18 on the reservation. They declined, but it does appear to be there. Based on Rob's post and the info from them, it seems that the extra cards are immediate charges rather than accounts on the room. So it's really just linking a card to the band (similar to colleges that link IDs to debit cards).

Let's get a link to some official information on this, i'm not going to go by hearsay.

 

[Rob562]

While I haven't used it with the Bands yet, the back-end system that actually handles the room charging is the same as it was before the MDE roll-out. (The MDE system simply links lots of different systems together, which is one reason it's had so many problems)

By default there is only one charging account associated with the room and all people in the room point to it. But if you want separate cards they simply set up multiple charge accounts for each person. It just takes a couple minutes for each additional charge account. The process is a little involved which is why not every front desk CM seems to be fully trained on it.

In November 2012, we had two people in an AKL room with two different credit cards. Later in the trip when we'd moved to a 2-bedroom at SSR, we had *four* cards going to *five* people (two people were on the same credit card).

But if you insist on physical proof in the post-MDE-switchover era, I'll post pics of my room charge printouts after my trip at the end of the month...

-Rob

 

[DVCOwner]

I have done it the last time I was at Walt Disney World. We had two couples and a single sharing a room at the Grand Floridian Villas. We had five people with Magic Bands and it was set up where each couple had one credit card and the single had her card. Only one card was tied to the room charges. So if something was charged to the room (like an additional day of maid service or room service), it would go onto that credit card.

 

[Victoria]

I guess all the CMs I've had check us in on the past three MDE-laden trips were idiots. I'll be back again in January with my sister and we will try again.