Question about room card spending

[larathydo]

Hey Everyone :wave:,

My girlfriend and I are going back to WDW in a couple weeks, but this time were going in a larger group.

A few years ago, we went to WDW together and associated our room card with our credit card and set a limit for spending. Everything worked out perfectly!

We're going to be getting our own room once again but this time around her younger sister will also sharing the room with us. We did this once before (a third in the room), but i'll touch more on that in a bit.

Like I said, in past trips using the room card for charges between just the two of us was no problem, but now that we have a third person in our room can our cards be seperated for spending? For example, I was hoping to do something like this (all of us staying in the same room):

Girlfriend and Myself - Both our room cards enabled for spending, limit of $200 associated with our Credit Card for spending money (only between us).
Girlfriend's Sister - Her room card also enabled for charging, but whatever money she wishes to spend would be given upfront as cash at the main desk (and her spending balance would be seperate from ours).

I called Disney prior to our last trip and spoke with someone who explained to me that what I was asking was possible. Unfortunately, upon arrival at the resort we were instead told that it couldn't be done by the front desk conseriege. Their reasoning was that their system could only associate one spending ammount per room. In other words, we were forced to either share a big pool of spending money between the three of us or just enable it for the two of us and make the sister pay for stuff herself using cash at all times - no spending privlidges given on the third card. We opted for the latter last year, we didn't really want to have to keep track of how much the other was spending.

My greatest fear - which has actually been realized during a past visit - is her loosing that cash by accident. My girlfriend lost her room card once before when we were in the Magic Kingdom and we immediately went to the Town Hall to have the old room card cancelled and a new one printed. That's the beauty of the card system at Disney! If it would have been a large ammount of cash that she lost, it would be gone forever and irreplacable!

I just wanted a second oppinion on this because I can't seem to understand why the spending money - especially if given upfront with cash - can't be associated with one particular room key (regardless of how many other occupents are in the room). What if we shared a room with friends? You'd think it'd be the same scenario and that people would have a need for this functionality in the past? :shrug:

 

[CleveRocks]

A resort cast member on two other Disney-related boards (same guy) assures us that it CAN be done, but that many cast members don't know about it. You have to use the word "SHARE," that you want to set up a share.

He says it's done all the time. He says if the CM says it can't be done that they should consult the "Front Desk Manual," which is reportedly the official but boring name of their bible of procedures.

But he says it definitely can be done, and others have returned from vacations and thanked him for explaining it to them.

 

[larathydo]

Hey CleveRocks,

Thanks for the quick reply! I don't suppose by chance you have a link to this other Disney-related board where what you describe is explained in further detail?

In any case, I think perhaps I am not fully understanding... To ask for a "SHARE" feature almost seems to imply that you want to share your funds with someone else? We want to do the opposite - to segregate/seperate the money between two people who are staying in the same room.

Or is it some sort of acronym? I just want to make sure because if I walk up to a cast member and describe what I wanted to accomplish and then say "it's supposedly referred to as a 'SHARE' " they might not get it / think i'm contradicting myself?

But you're at least pointing me in the right direction, thanks! :sohappy:

It'd be awesome if someone who actually works at Disney / a Disney hotel could chime in and give me the exact spesific term I need to use

 

[SpoonOfSugar]

Last trip there were six of us and we split into two rooms, Myself, my husband and my two younger children in one room and my oldest and her friend in another. we like to set a limit on each card of $200. We were able to do this perfectly fine for my room and all of us had the money on our cards. My oldest and her friend had issues. The CM said she couldn't do it :shrug:.She was able to put money on only one card or all the cards but she didn't know how to make two separate accounts(My daughter had debit and her friend had cash). She called over someone else and they said it isn't possible. My daughters friend ended up putting cash and on her card and my daughter just carried her debit around. We figured a large sum of cash was easier to lose than a debit card. This was at All Star Sports...

My Mother-in-Law works for Animal Kingdom Lodge and she says its possible but a lot of people don't know how to do it. Guess we just weren't lucky

 

[Rob562]

Hey CleveRocks,

Thanks for the quick reply! I don't suppose by chance you have a link to this other Disney-related board where what you describe is explained in further detail?

In any case, I think perhaps I am not fully understanding... To ask for a "SHARE" feature almost seems to imply that you want to share your funds with someone else? We want to do the opposite - to segregate/seperate the money between two people who are staying in the same room.

Or is it some sort of acronym? I just want to make sure because if I walk up to a cast member and describe what I wanted to accomplish and then say "it's supposedly referred to as a 'SHARE' " they might not get it / think i'm contradicting myself?

But you're at least pointing me in the right direction, thanks! :sohappy:

It'd be awesome if someone who actually works at Disney / a Disney hotel could chime in and give me the exact spesific term I need to use

I've seen the long explanation here on these forums, too. So a search might bring it up.

The one time that I tried it, the Front Desk CM knew what we were talking about, said he knew how to do it, but the system wasn't letting him. He also called a manager on the phone, who confirmed that what he was *trying* to do in the system should've worked. But they were never able to get it to work.

Purely speculating, it may be that a Share only works on a Room Only reservation. It may also have been some other random reason.

As for the term "share", I believe it's named that because two (or more) charging accounts are "sharing" a single room reservation, not the other way around.
And for why it's difficult to set this up when to you it seems like it would be so easy is that the system is a lot more complex than just each card acting like a reloadable gift card. To set up a Share, it's my understanding that they actually have to duplicate the customer folio (reservation), have both of them point to the same room, make sure ticket entitlements carry over, and THEN start to worry about putting a charge account on each one. It's not exactly copy-paste-insert-replace...

Lastly, the front desk computer systems just went through a major upgrade a month or two ago. It's possible that with the system change it's easier to set up a Share, or perhaps it's more difficult, or it may not even be available anymore.

I'll be trying it again myself in June.

-Rob

 

[mcompanik]

The easiest way to avoid all of the hassle would be for her to get a gift card for her spending. We have been able to use one for everything including dining. Just write down the number in case the card is lost. It can easily be replaced if it is.