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Comment by smoyer | Hacker News Reader

I always wanted my kids to have a wristband that's tied to my credit card - good thing there's nothing they'd want at Disney World!

Sarcasm aside, we always get a big wad of cash when we go on vacation (and especially to Disney World). It's almost impossible to track your spending if you follow the normal pattern of pulling out your credit card ... this wrist band (in my mind) is to make sure you don't realize what you're spending.

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That's absolutely a goal of this program: increase per-visitor spending. Making purchases as frictionless as possible pretty much guarantees that the average will rise.

Even the whole FastPass+ idea is meant to keep visitors out of the lines and on the move, which gives them more opportunities to spend money. It was seriously depressing on my last visit to MK/Epcot about how every single open space in the park is now filled with a kiosk or stand selling some type of souvenir or snack.

Only adults have charging privileges and even then you need a PIN (that the cardholder does not need to share).

It would be cool if you could get a text message for the charge amount(if it was over some set limit), location, and possibly itemized bill(since disney does control every system after all), and respond yes or no to allow or deny the transaction.

That's not really a Disney-type move since a) it would slow lines down as kids wait for approval and b) would result in a lot of unhappy kids whenever a charge is denied.

There are a few non-Disney services in Disney. Not many though. Stuff like Starbucks are not directly tied to Disney.

Which of course Apple already does for in-app purchases in iOS family accounts...

My first response to this is to eschew the technology, but in retrospect, maybe getting pre-paid cc's for the kids and linking their cards to those may be a good option. "Here's $200 for the week, don't blow it all on the first day".

I can only imagine that, the first time you do this, the entire rest of the week will be Not Fun for the parents.

Probably, but OTOH this could be a useful lesson in financial responsibility for the kids.

Set up a system that limits expenditures. $40 a day max, but previous extra rolls over. Or $20 a half day. Make a few simple options with the ability for a more adventurous parent to customize it.

I see no way that this is different than using your cc. You can delegate spending privs as you like. Just to yourself, just to adults, etc, and there's a PIN attached. If you can't budget correctly, that's not the problem of mobile payment systems. Personally I can't see the difference between this and credit cards.

If anything, mobile payment systems tend to be more accounting friendly. I can pop open my last google wallet purchases trivially. My credit card requires logging into a website or using a fairly crappy mobile app that's often not updated quickly with my most recent purchases.

Hmm... there's a real need for a credit or debit card app that tracks real time charges. I know authorization holds go through immediately (while actual transfers may take a day) and aren't always the same as spending (i.e. car rentals typically issue an authorization hold at time of rental for more than cost), but, in principle, that should be enough to keep track of likely cash flow in realtime. I'd like to see a bank app that simply takes authorization holds as spending and updates a graph in real time.

Simple is kinda this.

Yup. My phone usually notifies be of a transaction before a teller even hands back my card.

This actually came in handy about a year ago when my number got stolen. I was sitting at my desk and heard my phone vibrate twice in quick succession. It showed 2 charges at a grocery store in Florida (I am in Chicago). I immediately put a block on my card through Simples app and notified Simple about the fraudulent charges. It made a very scary situation easy to handle.

Wow. My cards seem to have no more than a 6 month max-time-until-fraud despite extreme care, so I'm sold on this.

Yeah, not as scary as a stolen credit card, but my Simple card was used by a bar tender to pay someone else's tab.

I was able to correct the mistake before anything else happened because I knew before the receipt had printed that the card had been used.

I love that about Simple. It's what prompted me to stop getting receipts. I used to keep them, "just in case". But I never validated against my bank statement--it's just too much of a pain. This way I can instantly see it's correct and that I have a record of it. I quite like my Simple card.

Google Wallet does this. They sent me a notification in the application, as well as an email that confirms when the charge clears. It also allows me to pay for my lunch through a coworker by sending them money through the app.

Many banks have apps that will send notifications on every CC charge. I have at least three (CapitalOne, Wells Fargo, AMEX).

It's more useful to see your spending habits than safety. After all, a stolen credit card isn't really worth worrying about when you're not actually out any money.

With CapitalOne I have the opposite problem, in that they keep declining charges and sometimes closing my card for purchases I did actually make myself.

Sure it's easier to spend with a a wristband.

But i could imagine some smartwatch app(or phone app), that really helps you control spending, even better than cash.

For example, an app that has a list of things you really really want to buy, and whenever you are about to pay for a an impulse buy, you're shown that list, and asked if you prefer to save towards that.

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