How to make you Disney Visa Reward points grow!

[CEK40]

Hi to you all

I have a Disney Rewards Visa and love it because it helps when we are planning to vacation in WDW. We try to go once every two years, so 2010will be that year.

Since I have had our card I don't just go out and purchase things to get the points, but if it is something that I would normally pay for or purchase during the month I use it then pay it off every month.

I was just wondering how those of you that have the Disney Rewards Visa gain your extra rewards dollars? I am thinking about starting to pay all my utilities with it then pay it off. I have 2 children in college and use it to pay their tuition, which can help add the points real quick.

So, I was just curious if ya'll do the same thing to help the "Rewards Dollars" add up.

Thanks to you all for the great "Budget Tips", I love reading them.

 

[Kiddeokee]

I use my Disney Visa all the time. It has a low credit limit, so I pay it off multiple times each month. This makes it easier for me to pay it off if I don't see a large bill at the end of the month. I now have more than a hundred disney dollars.

I am switching to another card, with a higher limit and pays out cash at higher percentages. But I have really liked using my Mickey Mouse card.

 

[AnnaS]

I also used it a few times to pay college tuition until they started charging a fee for it. High school used to charge a fee also. I would have had a lot of points if they did not charge a fee, lol.

I should really use it more for groceries, cell phone bill and some other things. I also pay it off every month (multiple times, we have a Chase bank three blocks away).

I use it to pay our car insurance (and my sons two - they pay theirs but I put it on my cc) and our home insurance, our AAA membership (which we really don't need with new cars) and pet insurance. Just a few that I thought for now.

 

[HeatherFeather]

My parents live here in town and if they are making a large purchase (like their hot tub $5000) they call me and have me put it on my card and write me a check for it immediately.

Of course this would not work for anyone whose finances you do not trust 100%. I have probably earned several hundred Disney dollars buying stuff for them.

 

[clutter]

I pay EVERYTHING with my Visa. I write the charges down in my checkbook to keep on budget (and it keeps a nice cushion in your account, too).

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

I do same as pp's except I use a Southwest Airlines card. Free flights are a great feeling!!! I like that I can use it to go other places too. Last summer 3 out of 4 of us flew to AZ (Sedona/Grand Canyon) for free.
mmmmmm.....

 

[a1tinkfans]

I try and use it all the time too, paying it off thru out the month.....I also have free SW flight (sw card) after this upcoming flight which I'll be able to use for 2010 vacation,

I changed my card design to TINK after having Mickey for a while....I like it and get compliments,


I think right now I have about 250 for the upcoming trip, but I have a 2K bill to throw on in a week (which is not typical), so that'll help too.

?????Did you all get the 5x promotion card in mail for July Aug and Sept????. My break point this time around is 750, it was over 1500 last time and I was so mad I did not sign up for it at all. This time I can actually Earn the 5 times, its for gas, groceries airlines and dining.......hope to make LOTS of spending money for future visit.....

 

[pat fan]

I use mine for EVERYTHING that is a regular purchase. Groceries, gas, dentist, vet, online purchases, Wal-Mart....just everything. I pay it off every month so I don't pay interest as it has a horrendous interest rate, but tghe points are great.

I just got the promo for 25 extra points if you pay monthly bills with it, like your phone bill, electric etc...I've never done that, but as we're going next summer I just might. We last went in '07 and since then I've accumulated about 650 points . Please, don't do the math

 

[My2Qtz0205]

I am disappointed in the measly returns the Disney Visa offers. We had already booked our Disney vacation when I got the Visa, so no big bucks coming from that. My husband did purchase new tires for my car with our Visa, so that got us a measly $6. Pitiful. Paying for auto insurance is a good idea, but that would only get me another $7 or $8.

Anyway, I got it mainly so we can do the Character Meet and Greet at Epcot, so I probably won't use it after that.

 

[tiggertabi]

I pay for everything on it, and I go every friday (payday) and pay off the balance. I don't really carry a balance that way, but I get the points. we have like 250 dd this trip, after I used about 75 for our Nov. weekend getaway.

 

[Gretchen3ajoshmom]

I use it for groceries and gas... and pay it off multiple times a month.... I am not going to Disney until 2012 and will not have my income in the fall of 11(student teaching!! if all goes well) so I am hoping to have a big chunk taking care of with the card..... we'll have to see-! After two months of using it I have 29 points...We're getting there!

 

[Jennifer in MI]

We have two ccs, one that earns us cash back and the Disney card. Dh uses the Disney card for work.

I put everything on the cash back card - groceries, our local taxes, activities for the kids, cable bill, cell phone bill, etc. You get the idea. I also volunteer for a couple organizations. I volunteer to buy things with my card and have them reimburse me. It works GREAT! I loved it when I planned a state-wide conference for one group and was able to put the hotel bill on my card!

Dh is an Episcopal priest. So, anything he needs for church goes on that card. Last month our church had an outing to a Tiger baseball game. He charged over 300 tickets at once! That's going to get us a nice return!!

Have fun watching the points accumulate! We cash them in once/year, and earn about $350 on the Disney card and $700 on our personal card. Not bad!

 

[shruley]

We too pay almost all our monthly expenses on our Disney card. We then just pay it off at the end of the month. DH tries to track all of our spending weekly as we go to stay on top of spending, so we don't end up with a huge bill we can't pay at the end. We just don't usually carry cash and the card is convienent. We've been saving for about 2 years and this trip will have over $750 in reward dollars to spend. Truly without that $750 we might not have been able to go this year. We don't normally have quite so many points, but we built a new house last year. Even though we had a general contractor, several things we ended up paying for ourselves and then the contractor reimbursed us with a check immeadiately. So we racked up some nice points that way! Another way we've racked up some points is paying medical bills by credit card. It's convienent as we can either call or pay online and not have to mail in a payment, plus we earn the points. We just switched to a VEBA for health insurance, so for the first $1850, the plan reimburses me (mails me a check) and then I pay the doctor. Given that DD has lots of health issues, we make some extra dollars off those bills. Due to an insurance mess-up Blue Cross then had to send me an extra $1850 that I then had to pay back to medical facilities, so this year alone my daughter's bills earned me $40 extra dollars that really didn't come from my pocket.

We have NEVER gotten one of those "triple your reward offers" or whatever I see floating around. I assume it's because we never carry a balance, so they don't want to reward us more. The amount of points Disney pays is pretty standard. I think there are cards with better return, but we like having the money that can't be spent on anything but Disney. If we had a cash reward card I'm afraid we'd spend it on something else instead of saving it for Disney.

 

[Karenj2]

We do the same as many of the PPs - pay any bill we can with it, it's our only CC (kinda - it's the only one we use), and we don't carry cash, so EVERYTHING goes on it... (ETA - I forgot to say that we pay it off every month...)

We're also going through infertility treatments, and so I was able to charge the cost of that ($$$$$$$$$$) on our CC. (We split the cost in half because of our credit limit, but then they didn't process it in time, so I had to call to ask for an increase so I could pay the other half!! I will be calling them after this next payment to lower it again. Maybe.)

Because of that, between last August and the last statement we had $465 in disney dollars that I used to pay off a portion of our trip, and I expect that I'll have close to $200 more by the time we go in August to spend on souvieniers, tips & beverages... (Hopefully we'll have reason to buy some baby items!!)

 

[fab5friend99]

I use my Disney for everything too and pay it off each month. I never get those 5x rewards either. I will switch over to my Discover card when they have their 5x offers that are open to anyone who signs up. Like starting in July, gasoline purchases (among other things) will get 5x rewards so I will use that card until I reach their $300 limit and then switch back to the Disney card. And I can get the Discover card rewards as cash so I just save those until I'm ready to go to Disney.

 

[Mickey527]

I am a little angry with my Disney Visa right now. I had a balance of $419 which I paid in two installments last month, $200 one week and $219 the following week. Today I got a bill for $6.59. I called and said I paid the balance off before this due date and was told that they have a daily rate and I had to pay for days before they received the payment. So I got 4 points ($4) in disney points but owe almost $7.
But I am about to write a check for $3,000 to pay off my Home Depot card (29.99%) and my credit Union card (15.99%) with the check that has the 2.99% for 18 months. I can pay $100 less than I am now each month and have the entire thing paid off in 16 months with a savings of $242 interest.
I have never once gotten any points multiplier cards and I have had my cards since they started the program. I have two, one that I got when they first started and another when I applied at DTD because I loved the "gift". Never thought I would get another card but they sent me another.

 

[paper1225]

We use the card for anything we can and then pay it as soon as possible to the card (there is a mandatory three day waiting period between payments). We have tried to wait until the end of the month, but always found we spent more than we realized! It is def. paying off for us.......we went in Feb and used all the points we had and are already up to a 97 point reward!! We have recieved the 5x bonus for July,Aug and Sept and cannot wait for tomorrow to get here!!!!