But again, you're tying your money up is "Disney" money and it takes away all flexibility. Your DVA will have to be open for 90 days before you can request the GC, so you have to open it (although not fully fund it) 45 days before a final payment for a package is even due. And then if you have to cancel, the money goes back into the DVA.
I'm not against the DVA completely. I have one and used to for paying my DVC dues. Since I know that I must pay those dues annually, I purchase the Disney GCs at a reduced price and put them in the DVA. Disney is going to get that money every year, whether I take a vacation or not. However, if I didn't have that sunk Disney cost, I would not invest my money in discounted Disney GCs or funding a DVA unless I was confident that I would not miss the money. The small return on the money is not worth the potential cash flow problems.
+1
And as a general rule I don't go to target so getting Disney gc's for me would be a pain (the last time I was at a target was the week before Christmas to give you an idea of how often I go). so I can't take advantage of the redcard.
I do the exact same thing, since I don't have room cost and my dues are about 1000 bucks, I would only earn 20 bucks back maximum. I get my park tickets from
undercover tourist because the savings is way more than the 20 bucks if I buy them through disney.
I like flexibility, what I may do this year (thanks to budget board tipsters) is since I use my chase visa for every thing I may turn some of my points into a few target gc's and then do the online thing for the Disney gc's.
So for me I get 5% back on my chase visa and or my amex, on a wide variety of things, not just target. like Jan, feb and march it was on grocery's at any store. Next quarter it will be at gas.
I can than use the points to get visa gift cards/ american express gc so I get the 5% off of my visa gc and can use them to buy my tickts through
UT. the only thing I really get from Disney direct is my annual pass and I get a dvc discount on that.
have you purchase your annual pass using your dva??
I guess because we've been to Disney so many times that our plans change quite often. I always start out with 10 ADR's and then by the time vacation rolls around it's down to 2, I simply don't want to be stuck with hundreds of dollars in Disney gc or target gc's