Disney Visa - any down side?

I never carry a balance on my Disney Visa, but I also just got the notice about the interest rate being 9.99% plus prime which makes it currently 13.24%. I checked my last statement and the interest rate was 10.24% so for no apparent reason, my interest rate just went up 3%.
 
I love my Disney Visa. I know that some other cards give you bigger %'s back (although it is tough to find without an annual fee). But, for me, it is so tough to actually USE the other benefits - where the Disney Rewards Points are simple. We go to WDW once to twice a year and I just call and get a gift card and I'm good to go. We usually have about $200 in 'free' money to spend on a nice dinner or some souveniers every time we go. So the ease of use to me is huge. It is something I know I will use every time without it 'expiring' or anything.
 
:cool1:We received a 10% discount at all Disney run stores on purchase over $50.00 including tax. Plus discount on Disney.com. The best thing is we get 2 Reward card (like credit cards) we give then to our girls for spending money. We tell them this is all they get so don't ask for anything when it runs our. We also retain veto power. The cute card get's a lot of people asking me about Disney. :cool1:
 
There definitely are cards out there with better rewards, but DH and I are too lazy to do the research and we don't want to pay an annual fee. We use our discover in certain months for certain things to get the 5% back and other than that we use the disney visa for everything else. We had $150ish disney dollars for our trip in May and we'll have probably $300 in May for our next trip. Its nice :)

Also, if you have two people on the card you don't both have to have the same design. I have Nemo and DH has the basic red mickey head one.
 


There definitely are cards out there with better rewards, but DH and I are too lazy to do the research and we don't want to pay an annual fee. We use our discover in certain months for certain things to get the 5% back and other than that we use the disney visa for everything else. We had $150ish disney dollars for our trip in May and we'll have probably $300 in May for our next trip. Its nice :)

Also, if you have two people on the card you don't both have to have the same design. I have Nemo and DH has the basic red mickey head one.

The best non-Disney credit card I have found was recommended by Clark Howard - it's the reward card at PenFed.
 
I got it to book our Disney trip so we got the 0% for 6 months too. Plus I got $40 off instantly when I booked...then $22 in rewards points...which I used to buy lanyards at the Disney store...those were the only perks I saw. The interest seems high but I pay stuff off. I probably won't use it once I pay off the trip. I almost fell over when I saw what my credit limit was...recession my butt!!!! :eek: I also applied for the Expedia Mastercard and got an instant $50 off my bookings and that was 0% for 6 months as well. :thumbsup2
 
Several card designs to choose from. My kids liked Tink - lots of people comment to my DH when he uses his Tink card! :rotfl:
Which is precisely the reason why I did the signing up and I ordered which card to get. I got the basic red one with just the logo like what is displayed on the Disney channel.

Wifey said, "The kids would love the Tinkerbell card!" I said, "Yeah, they would love that..." as I turned the laptop screen away from her view and clicked on the red card :rolleyes1


Question on the "I pay the balance every month" crowd. I don't have experience on that since I am trying to pay off another card that does have a balance. What I want to do is use the card for my normal weekly purchases (groceries, gas, etc.) and on payday, log online and make a payment whether I have a statement coming or not. Can you do that or does it mess up the monthly statement.

For example, my wife has $300 left of her pay this week after sending in some bills. We bought some groceries and gas for the car and now I just want to make a $300 payment. Next week I get paid and we will have $400 left after bills. We will get some groceries again, fill up the cars, buy some lunch, and pay a few of the bills with the Disney card instead of sending in a check. Thus, I want to make another payment on the Disney card next week of $400. I want to do this every week instead of waiting for the statement to come in to pay. Does that work?
 


I pay on my Disney Visa about once a week. You can only pay as much as your current balance, sometimes it takes a few days for the purchase to go through. I believe you can make up to 8 payments a month (not really sure).
 
Yes, we all say we pay our bills each month....BUT...

The downside of the Disney Visa is if you ever make a late payment or miss a payment - the terms are pretty steep compared to some others. I haven't really looked recently, but that was my recollection. You can undo any 'savings' very quickly if you ever have to carry a balance.

Also, to get the reward points, you have to order a different 'rewards' card and transfer your points. once you transfer the points they expire more quickly. The points on your DIsney VIsa - even non-transferred ones eventually expire. The rewards card takes everal weeks to get in the mail.
 
I love how easy it is to use. For some reason I got $25 "bonus dollars" on y statement a couple of months ago. That was a nice little perk. Maybe it was because we've been cardholders for several years. :confused3
 
Yes, we all say we pay our bills each month....BUT...

The downside of the Disney Visa is if you ever make a late payment or miss a payment - the terms are pretty steep compared to some others. I haven't really looked recently, but that was my recollection. You can undo any 'savings' very quickly if you ever have to carry a balance.

Also, to get the reward points, you have to order a different 'rewards' card and transfer your points. once you transfer the points they expire more quickly. The points on your DIsney VIsa - even non-transferred ones eventually expire. The rewards card takes everal weeks to get in the mail.

i just ordered a rewards card and got it in about a week- not several weeks
 
I am also wary of credit cards - I have a couple and do not carry a balance so when I started to plan my last trip to Disney I was also asking the question if I should get the Disney Visa.

I am really glad that I did. I was able to use it for hospital costs for surgery - something I had to do anyway - paid it off right away and had enough Disney rewards to take mom to tea at the Grand Floridian on our last trip with some left over for souvenires. I would say only do the Disney Visa if you pay it off every month - it is not the card to carry a balance - but you can earn rewards you will use during your stay easily - just things that you have to do anyway add up. This year I was able to use it for my health insurance which I was paying anyway - but I will appreciate the rewards come next trip!:thumbsup2
 
I love the designs for disney visa cards! :lovestruc

I do too. I have an old Bambi design that they no longer use. My card expires next summer and I really hate having to give up my Bambi card. almost every time I use it I get comments on it.
 
Question on the "I pay the balance every month" crowd. I don't have experience on that since I am trying to pay off another card that does have a balance. What I want to do is use the card for my normal weekly purchases (groceries, gas, etc.) and on payday, log online and make a payment whether I have a statement coming or not. Can you do that or does it mess up the monthly statement.
Does that work?

You sure can I do it all the time and the payments gets posted quickly. The online versions are updated more faster than your statements so don't be surprised if the paper statements do not match up. I also went paperless and only print when needed. Sidebar: - you can also change your payment due date if needed (which is always a nice touch!)
 
I have one. I'll probably dump it soon.

I've said this before in other threads but I don't see the benefits.

1) The interest rate really isn't competitive. Yes, this doesn't matter if you don't carry a balance but if you get into a jam then you're suddenly paying a lot more in interest compared with other cards.
2) The rewards aren't so great and are tied to Disney. You're getting 1% back and you have to use that 1% at Disney. Why not just get another card and get 1% (or likely more) back where you can use it anywhere?
3) The discounts at the parks are a pain to keep up with. If you go to any random store in the parks and flash your Disney Visa and ask, "Hey, do I get a discount here?" You'll get a, "No, it works at the World of Disney at Downtown Disney, though." So, yes, you get 10% off at the World of Disney. The discounts (and I have the same complaint with the annual pass) are available at some places but it's not frequent enough to where it makes any sense. You get to the point where you don't even ask and you're not likely to keep a list in your pocket so that you can go out of your way to save the buck.
4) I haven't received any special 5-for-1 offers on spending to get extra points. I know others have. I don't know how frequent this is. If it's frequent enough and you go to Disney World a great deal then I could see how this would work to your advantage. Suddenly you're getting 5% back and in practical terms you're using it on something you'd be spending your money on, anyway. This would need to be really frequent to make it a real benefit, though, not a once a year for 2 months kind of thing.

I think the main benefit of the Disney Visa is the feel-good aspect. I have one because I received $100 gift card for applying. I thought that there would be discounts at parks/stores, etc. (and there are - it's just not universal enough to where you'd use it). I really think the appeal of this card is the Disney brand. As a practical comparison of this card with just about any other would leave you thinking, "Oh, I'm better off with another card..."

I think the only real benefit I see is if you do the 6-months to pay for a Disney vacation and then I'm not sure how you link that with your card unless you use Disney's website/travel service (not getting a discount there) or maybe AAA (I think this works as I remember bringing this up before and someone saying that they had tried it and it worked). Anyway, my thought is that you're probably better off having the cash in hand to pay for your trip rather than using the 6-months to pay deal as a general principle. Then you're not carrying the balance and you're not leaving yourself with being caught with having all of that interest added in if you miss paying it off in 6 months (which is what they're gambling on). Seems to me that if you have 6 months to pay and you think you could do that then you could have just saved up for 6 months prior to your trip and then pay for it all with cash. Also, if you're going to finance it, it seems like you'd be better off not playing the retroactive-interest game and just putting it on a lower-interest rate card.

I know - but it's a Disney Card...
 
We use our Disney VISA all the time. Now because we have a family business, I use it to pay off vendors and manufacturers. ALWAYS pay off the entire balance by due date (no extra fees here). I can rack up a total of $750 Disney dollars every calendar year. Me, the wife, DS and nephew will go to Disney every three years, next trip in Oct 2010. After getting a VISA for the wife too, by the time we are ready to go, we will have a total of $3,100 to spend at Disney which should pay for hotel and tickets at least for a week vacation.
Saving for three years to go for a week sounds like a long time, but if I did not have this card, we probably would not go at all.
My second best card is my United Airlines VISA. I will have miles saved up for four free tickets to Orlando also.

Hey Mickey, we will be there in about 331 days.:banana:
 
The Visa discount at WDW used to only be at the World of Disney store, but now they give you 10% off at almost any store in the World (including the parks) if your purchase is over $50.

There's other threads talking about details/loopholes like if you get the discount on food (I don't think so).
 
The only reason I got one was for the $40 credit and 6 months to pay it off. But I actually had the money to pay for the trip in advance. I'll just let it collect interest for 5 months and then pay it off...no biggie. But not like the banks are paying any real interest either!!!!! :lmao: I want to wait till we actually GO on the trip just in case I need to cancel. Then I won't have to worry about being reimbursed from my Visa if it's paid up.

You know when I think about it, they gave me a $15,000 limit, 1% of that is only $150!!!! What a crock...I probably won't even use it and cancel it when I get home. There's better cash back cards out there than that...and I don't use them that much anyway...
 
I'm a charter member of Disney Visa. Sort of a fun thing to have written on the card... however...

I use if for absolutely everything (even the $2.40 Taco Bell purchase) and really do pay it off every month (have been since I got it). I've never in all the 6+ years I've had the card, received a 5x offer. I find that selectively strange.

I actually stopped using it for a long time, picked it up recently to earn rewards for my January trip. I think that the only advantage to the rewards system over my Discover card is that the rewards ARE tied strictly to Disney. You can't use those dollars anywhere else, hence you won't be tempted to spend them on something other than your vacation. The money will be there for that purpose when you need it. With my Discover, I can use those reward dollars for outright cash or increase the rewards by ordering gift cards for different businesses (and Disney ain't on that list).

So, if you're looking for a way to save strictly for Disney and not be tempted to use that money elsewhere, use the card. Otherwise, try for a Discover card. It's much more versatile and pays much better. I keep the Disney card anyway, just for the discounts.
 
Hmmm. You all have me rethinking why I shredded the offer I got last month. So you do earn 1% on all purchases, not just those at WDW? I understand the rewards are only good at WDW.

How fast will it come if I apply online today? I could use it during our Dec and Jan trips!
 

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