New Credit Card Authorization Holds

ninafeliz · May 7, 2019

We stayed at Camelback Resort in the Poconos over the weekend for 2 nights and they put a $400 hold on our cc if we wanted charging. But Disney thinks $100 is enough and is “industry standard”. If you’re going to do it, at least do it in a way that works and doesn’t cause more problems than it solves.

Iowamomof4 · May 7, 2019

This really sucks! We're travelling with a group of 7, including 2 pre-teens and 3 young adults. We have gift cards loaded with over $3000 of spending money to cover most of our meals and one trip to the VOID. The only way for us to avoid using the MB's to charge back to the room is to either give the 3 young adults a gift card worth nearly $1000 (uh, NOT going to happen) or forget about the gift cards and just use a credit card at the POS (2 of the young adults are our own kids and are authorized users on our credit card). But again, we already have the money set aside in the gift cards so we really can't afford to just forget about that money and put everything or even some things on the credit card. Sigh.

HopperFan · May 7, 2019

Searc said:
HopperFan, I've missed you. Glad to see you posting again.

Thank you

Sometimes real life just gets in the way. And each year I've tried to take online/social breaks and this one lasted longer ... and was a bit refreshing.

AngiTN · May 7, 2019

LVSWL said:
Everyone should be very careful to check their bills with Guest Services. Not only are they putting multiple $100 holds on the account, but they also had what they call "incremental holds" on our account for the total so far, one in the $200 range, one in the $180 range, so when we reached the $500 range they hit the CC with that, but as of this morning the $100 holds and the two other holds for incremental totals are still pending. I don't know about y'all but we do not want to be trying to figure out this stuff on our vacation.

Yeah, me either.
As long as they stay in the pending column and never move into the final column I don't worry about them.
I've got a couple of other things that do weird pending charges things. I only worry about the totals when they process as final charges.

AngiTN · May 7, 2019

Iowamomof4 said:
This really sucks! We're travelling with a group of 7, including 2 pre-teens and 3 young adults. We have gift cards loaded with over $3000 of spending money to cover most of our meals and one trip to the VOID. The only way for us to avoid using the MB's to charge back to the room is to either give the 3 young adults a gift card worth nearly $1000 (uh, NOT going to happen) or forget about the gift cards and just use a credit card at the POS (2 of the young adults are our own kids and are authorized users on our credit card). But again, we already have the money set aside in the gift cards so we really can't afford to just forget about that money and put everything or even some things on the credit card. Sigh.

Can you use the gift card to pay off the room charge prior to arrival? Then use the credit card for post-arrival purchases instead?
That's what I hope to do, for the most part
Usually, I avoid the call and let Disney process the room charge on my card and use gift cards post-arrival but this time I'm planning, for now, to do it the other way around. Unless something changes in the next couple of weeks.

crvetter · May 7, 2019

Iowamomof4 said:
The only way for us to avoid using the MB's to charge back to the room is to either give the 3 young adults a gift card worth nearly $1000 (uh, NOT going to happen) or forget about the gift cards and just use a credit card at the POS (2 of the young adults are our own kids and are authorized users on our credit card).

Edit: Removed suggestion because it no longer worked on disneygiftcard.com

maxiesmom · May 7, 2019

LVSWL said:
Everyone should be very careful to check their bills with Guest Services. Not only are they putting multiple $100 holds on the account, but they also had what they call "incremental holds" on our account for the total so far, one in the $200 range, one in the $180 range, so when we reached the $500 range they hit the CC with that, but as of this morning the $100 holds and the two other holds for incremental totals are still pending. I don't know about y'all but we do not want to be trying to figure out this stuff on our vacation.

I don't want to figure it out, which is why I will no longer be using my Magic Band for purchases. And if it keeps me from buying that third tee shirt, then I guess I am the better for it.

LVSWL · May 7, 2019

AngiTN said:
Yeah, me either.
As long as they stay in the pending column and never move into the final column I don't worry about them.
I've got a couple of other things that do weird pending charges things. I only worry about the totals when they process as final charges.

Except when the charges are still in the pending column and multiple holds are put on your account your bank (mine at least and many others) finds it suspicious and declines the charge. The number of "pops" from Disney are frequent and random. To each his own. For me, will be using my CC & keep Disney Whacky Accounting out of my vacation.

Peppeperoni · May 7, 2019

So just from glancing through pages, it seems the general concensus; it’s easier to just use your card rather than using your MB to charge through the card?

LVSWL · May 7, 2019

Peppeperoni said:
So just from glancing through pages, it seems the general concensus; it’s easier to just use your card rather than using your MB to charge through the card?

It certainly would have been for us. Our purchases were denied multiple times, we spent quite a lot of time talking to Guest Services, and also calling our bank, going through what charges/holds were there. Thank goodness I had a CC in my bag when we were declined. Many people just go to the park expecting their MB to be able to take care of all of their purchases.

LVSWL · May 7, 2019

maxiesmom said:
I don't want to figure it out, which is why I will no longer be using my Magic Band for purchases. And if it keeps me from buying that third tee shirt, then I guess I am the better for it.

I agree. We will use them to open our door (not that they always work for that..whole other story ha!) and to go into the park and FP. Disney has made us dependent upon the MB system for our trip and should work these kinks out. Also on a side note they should do something about the internet at the resorts. We have been at BWV for the last 9 nights and rarely have we been able to use/stay on the wifi. Tough when DH has to work while on vacation. We are Disney lovers, but are a little discouraged right now.

marikujawa · May 7, 2019

LVSWL said:
I agree. We will use them to open our door (not that they always work for that..whole other story ha!) and to go into the park and FP. Disney has made us dependent upon the MB system for our trip and should work these kinks out. Also on a side note they should do something about the internet at the resorts. We have been at BWV for the last 9 nights and rarely have we been able to use/stay on the wifi. Tough when DH has to work while on vacation. We are Disney lovers, but are a little discouraged right now.

The WiFi wasn’t working for us at SSR last week.

Iowamomof4 · May 7, 2019

AngiTN said:
Can you use the gift card to pay off the room charge prior to arrival? Then use the credit card for post-arrival purchases instead?
That's what I hope to do, for the most part
Usually, I avoid the call and let Disney process the room charge on my card and use gift cards post-arrival but this time I'm planning, for now, to do it the other way around. Unless something changes in the next couple of weeks.

We already paid off the room with gift cards.

crvetter said:
You can split the gift cards on disneygiftcard.com. You would need to buy small denomination gift cards for each person then you can transfer the balance of the 1k gift cards onto those additional ones. You just need to create an account and then under manage cards you can select transfer balance to move amounts between gift cards.

Else you can do as suggested above.

Hmm... I thought I tried once to figure out a way to transfer only a portion of a gift card to another gift card, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. It seemed like my only option was to transfer ALL of a gift card onto another gift card.
EDIT: I'll take a look again and see if I can figure it out. I have lots of empty gift cards I could use.

crvetter · May 7, 2019

Iowamomof4 said:
Hmm... I thought I tried once to figure out a way to transfer only a portion of a gift card to another gift card, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. It seemed like my only option was to transfer ALL of a gift card onto another gift card.
EDIT: I'll take a look again and see if I can figure it out. I have lots of empty gift cards I could use.

Edit: Removed suggestion didn't work.

Mrs Grumpy · May 7, 2019

crvetter said:
You can definitely select the dollar amount to transfer does not need to be all or none. When you get the transfer screen you can just type in the dollar amount to transfer.

Wonder what I am doing wrong because it has never let me either. Won't let me change the amount on that screen

Iowamomof4 · May 7, 2019

crvetter said:
You can definitely select the dollar amount to transfer does not need to be all or none. When you get the transfer screen you can just type in the dollar amount to transfer.

I tried and tried just now and I could not change the amount. At the top of one screen it said, "For your convenience, you can transfer full card balances from one Disney Gift Card to another." Maybe it has changed recently and they no longer allow partial transfers. :confused3

crvetter · May 7, 2019

Iowamomof4 said:
I tried and tried just now and I could not change the amount. At the top of one screen it said, "For your convenience, you can transfer full card balances from one Disney Gift Card to another." Maybe it has changed recently and they no longer allow partial transfers.

Yeah I just tried (hadn't for a while) and it no longer allows me transfer anything but the full amount. Sorry for my old information.

Iowamomof4 · May 7, 2019

crvetter said:
Yeah I just tried (hadn't for a while) and it no longer allows me transfer anything but the full amount. Sorry for my old information.

No worries, but it sure doesn't make this whole credit card/magicband/gift card situation any easier. :sad2:

AngiTN · May 7, 2019

Peppeperoni said:
So just from glancing through pages, it seems the general concensus; it’s easier to just use your card rather than using your MB to charge through the card?

If you don't intend to pay off room charges with a gift card, yep

afan · May 7, 2019

Iowamomof4 said:
I tried and tried just now and I could not change the amount. At the top of one screen it said, "For your convenience, you can transfer full card balances from one Disney Gift Card to another." Maybe it has changed recently and they no longer allow partial transfers.

Pretty sure it's been over a year since it was possible, if it ever was. It's partly why some people on the budget board suggest not putting it all on one card, which I know isn't very helpful for now. As much of a mess as it is maybe let the teens/kids use the MB for charging and pay it off each day with the gc and then use the GC for everything the adults do. I wouldn't want to carry around a card with that much on it.

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