Gift cards and chargebacks to the room

[beaded]

We will be at CBR Dec 11-16. The room is paid for. I have about $600 in gift cards that I'd like to use as our spending money (plus about $500 in cash). I'd rather not risk losing the gift cards in the park by carrying them with me.

My question is this, If I put in a cc number with my online check in now, will they charge my cc without notifying me or giving me a chance to use my gift cards? Or when I get to the resort, can I give them the gift cards to put on my room as payment for my charges, along with a cc?

Or should I just suck it up and carry the gift cards with me?

 

[brittanidp]

From what I've read, they won't let you know before your cc gets charged so best thing to do if you don't want to carry the gift cards is pay off the balance every night at the front desk with your gift cards. I read that the limit before they charge your room at mods was around $1000 and some have been charged before their balance got that high

 

[cassie58]

You do not need to carry the gift cards. When you put your cc on file for the week, it is like running a tab. All the charges will be listed for your room, and then the night before your check out day, you can get a print out if the charges, and pay them off as you like, so you can use your gift cards first, and pay any extra with the cc if needed. The only time your cc is actually charged is the morning you check out, if you have not paid it beforehand. We charge our tips to the rooms, as well as OOP meals and souvineers, and then pay it off the night before using my Disney Visa Rewards redemption, my gift cards and ones we give the kids for each trip, and then the remainder goes to cc(to earn more rewards!). No worries - leave them in the safe for the week and relax! You are going at a great time - check out the giant gingerbread house at GF if you haven't seen it before!

 

[KT0191]

I've read where people have gotten their cards charged before they reach the charging limits (which I think is $1500 for values/mods and $2000? for deluxe). So I don't really like to chance it by running up a biggish tab. I go down every night/morning after and pay down my bill with my gift cards just so I'm more at ease and know where I'm at.

 

[bumbershoot]

If I had giftcards and didn't want to use them in the parks (which isn't what I do; I'd just use them in the parks) I would go to the front desk each night to pay it down. I don't want to run any risk of the CC being charged when I have GCs.

 

[Hopefully]

I charge to my room and every few days I go and apply the gift cards to my room balance.
They will not allow the gift cards to be applied as a credit before the charges hit the account, but you can pay them down.
If for some reason the amount is charged to your CC on file first, a credit reversal can be applied back to the CC and the gift card used.

 

[Stinky_Pete]

I charge to my room and every few days I go and apply the gift cards to my room balance.
They will not allow the gift cards to be applied as a credit before the charges hit the account, but you can pay them down.
If for some reason the amount is charged to your CC on file first, a credit reversal can be applied back to the CC and the gift card used.

This is exactly what I've done every year for the past four years. Once they did put the charge through before I went and used my gift cards. They just reversed the charge and i used my gift cards. No problem.

 

[buzznina]

We also pay our whole trip with GCs and since we always combine our GCs into 1 (maybe 2), we rather not carry them around to the parks, easy to lose. I will normally take a stroll to the lobby and payoff the balance every 2 or 3 days and then the night before checking out.

P.S. I also always get a printout so I can check the charges, much easier then sifting through receipts.

 

[floridagirl61]

We do the same as some of the previous posters. Charge to the room, then go down every so often and pay down on the balance. We then make sure to pay off the remaining balance the night before checkout because I have been told by some CM's that the charges go to your credit card very early on the morning of checkout.
They will do a reversal but I just prefer to pay it off ahead of time.

 

[maxiesmom]

I too go down every few days and pay off the room charge. It is a good idea to keep an eye on it. One trip I was charged for my meal at Le Ceiller and another family's meal.

 

[DJFan88]

If I had giftcards and didn't want to use them in the parks (which isn't what I do; I'd just use them in the parks) I would go to the front desk each night to pay it down. I don't want to run any risk of the CC being charged when I have GCs.

I agree. I just leave the GCs in the safe, but bring whatever one I'm on, or 2 and stick them in my pocket like I would cash. it is so easy to me to just use them in the park, not dropping bills, sifting through change, just whip out the gift card. Sure, there's a couple of kiosks that you may need a couple of bucks for, but those are fewer now, and hardly remember that being any problem. Then there's no bill to worry about at the front desk. I just only take a couple with me and leave the rest in the safe. But I suppose if you do not want to carry even one, then what they said. But even then, I would still carry a $20 bill so a GC with it is NBD.

 

[Dis703]

We pay for everything in GC each trip. I keep the cards in our room safe and go down once or twice during the trip to make a payment with the cards. More than once I've gone down on our last night to find ridiculous lines in the lobby so I skip it until the next morning. They can reverse the credit card charge if you aren't there in time and take your gift cards instead.