Prepaid Visa Card

[sanjacprof]

I wanted to go to Walmart and get a Visa card that you can load money on. I wanted to put, let's say $500.00 on it to use in the parks. 2 Questions:

1.....Does this type of card work in the Disney parks.

2....If I lose it or it gets stolen....can someone else use it as cash, or would they need a password?

I've never used this kind of card, but I wanted to pay for everything as we go, and not have a credit card bill when I return.

Any advice?

 

[a1tinkfans]

I "think" that it IS a visa and as such, you should be able to use it anywhere Visa is accepted.
As far as losing it, no there is no password associated with it, that I know of. I think that if someone found it and went to a store, lets say and signed your name (you sign on back just like regular visa) they probably could just USE it, unless a cashier "caught" it, cause they thought something was weird, which is highly unlikely since they see cards all say long.
I think you'd be out your $$.

So, either use your own credit card and put your $$ away to pay it off when you get back (and hopefully get an extra bonus for using it, like the disney visa) or
consider using cash and then keep your days "spending" with you and the rest locked in room safe.
Good Luck and have a GREAT (safe) trip!

 

[loralie]

Last time I went I made sure I had money in my checking account and then put my debit card that has a mastercard logo on the room key to use for charging privilages. I did not have to bring my bank card to the parks and I did not have a big bill when I came back from the trip.

Have fun,

Loralie

 

[2Monkeys]

In my experience, the prepaid Visas can be frustrating if you are trying to make a purchase that is more than the amount on the card. This becomes a big problem when you have say, $5.42 left on the card, and you want to make a purchase to use it up. Unless your purchase is the EXACT amount on the card, or the cashier knows exactly how to run it, it won't work. When it gets low, it is extremely important that you know EXACTLY how much is on it. It would seem it would work the same as a retail gift card, where it will just take off the balance of the card, but I have never had that be the case.

I would set the money aside in your bank account, and either use your debit, or pay off the credit card when you return. Just keep track of what you've spent as you spend, then don't go over.

 

[Poohbear5]

We've also had problems with the Visa Gift Card; restaurants saying there is not enough money on it when indeed there was, they don't know how to handle the card if the amount is not enough to cover the whole purchase. I would not do them again.

For our Disney trip, we've been purchasing Disney dollars and gift cards this past year and plan to use those instead of cash.

 

[la79al]

Last trip my stepson had one of these and he could not use it at most snack carts.

 

[disnut8]

We use a Visa gift card all the time at Disney World. All the time. It's fine and accepted at almost all places. If you lose it, anyone can use the remaining balance on it though.

As for the amount getting to the end of the card, we've found that yes, it gets denied at places when it gets low. Therefore, we stop depending on it when the balance gets to be about $20. That seems to be the magic amount for the "I'm sorry, you don't have enough left on this card" reply. If you have a reloadable one, just reload to a higher balance.

The only reason we use the gift cards is because they are truly gifts to us. Otherwise, we'd be using our debit card or cash.