Using Disney gift cards

[100AcreWood]

I'm planning to use my extra 5% reward at Target to buy gift cards for our cruise. I assume you can charge extras to your room, how do I apply the gift cards to our bill?

 

[DisneyGirl8]

I think you may be able to call ahead. You can for sure go to Guest Service once onboard and they will apply the GCs to your account. Anything that gets charged to your onboard account can be paid down by the GCs.

 

[SILLYANDI]

You (or your TA) can call and apply them to your payment and/or onboard credit. I did this (you should have seen the crazy looks we got when I purchased $5000 worth of giftcards). It was really easy for me, but my TA wasn't exactly thrilled.

Side Note, after you apply the GC's to your account DO NOT THROW THEM AWAY. If you have to change reservations, DCL issues a refund or credit for decreased port charges, or you dont use the totality of the GC balances they will send the refund back to the gift card/s.

 

[TwinMom202]

I'm planning to use my extra 5% reward at Target to buy gift cards for our cruise. I assume you can charge extras to your room, how do I apply the gift cards to our bill?

Great idea to use your target card!!

 

[Stoners]

When does target do the gift card bonuses?

 

[bobbi565]

I think you may be able to call ahead. You can for sure go to Guest Service once onboard and they will apply the GCs to your account. Anything that gets charged to your onboard account can be paid down by the GCs.

Yes, you can call ahead and apply GCs to you stateroom account.

 

[Tara619]

You can also go to guest services once you're onboard and have them apply the GC to your onboard account.

 

[IBelieveInTheMagic]

Yep indeed you can apply ahead of time, like others mentioned! I used my Target card to get 5% off and pre-paid at least $900 to cover our Alaskan excursions, gratuities and spending money ahead of time. It's nice to save all that you can. I had transferred my reservation to Costco so I had to call Costco and give them the card numbers, then they in turned called DCL so it can take a little while but I knew that. I tried to do 10 at a time and I didn't want to worry about travelling with them as that's a lot of money to lose if something happened to them.

As other posters mentioned, keep the gift cards since you will be refunded directly back to the card/s if you cancel something.

If you booked directly with DCL, it's very easy to apply them online to your reservation.

Heather

 

[100AcreWood]

You can also go to guest services once you're onboard and have them apply the GC to your onboard account.

This sounds good. I have already paid the cruise in full so I was planning to use the gift cards for our one excursion and souvenirs, tips, etc.

I have an extra 5% from my pharmacy rewards so 10% off $600 worth of cards will be nice!

 

[Dizzyworld]

If you don't use all the money on the card, how long does it take to be put back on the card?

I am trying to figure out how to use my OBC and my Rewards $$$ on my upcoming cruise followed by a couple of days at WDW. This is our 12th cruise and the 2nd one this year, but 1st cruise without the kids () who will be in college. My point is I don't see us spending that much onboard so I want to make sure we can use the leftover Rewards $$$ at the parks. I was thinking of exchanging the Rewards $$$ to a few gift cards and only giving a gift card to GS as needed. (My Rewards card expires at the end of Dec. - the month we are cruising. Our last two cruises we came home with money.)

Any ideas would be helpful.

 

[Dug720]

Mine was back on within about a day.

 

[100AcreWood]

I bought my gift cards today. I can only imagine the looks those of you who use the cards to pay off your cruise must get.

 

[100AcreWood]

Yep indeed you can apply ahead of time, like others mentioned! I used my Target card to get 5% off and pre-paid at least $900 to cover our Alaskan excursions, gratuities and spending money ahead of time. It's nice to save all that you can. I had transferred my reservation to Costco so I had to call Costco and give them the card numbers, then they in turned called DCL so it can take a little while but I knew that. I tried to do 10 at a time and I didn't want to worry about travelling with them as that's a lot of money to lose if something happened to them.

As other posters mentioned, keep the gift cards since you will be refunded directly back to the card/s if you cancel something.

If you booked directly with DCL, it's very easy to apply them online to your reservation.

Heather

I missed your post earlier. I also booked through Costco. So you called them and they were able to add the gift cards as a credit to your spending account on board? I'm not sure what that is called.

 

[wdwwishes]

don't know if I saw this just skimming the posts but if you want to use the gift cards for your on board account, you have to be PIF before you can set that up. I always tally my excursions and projected spendings on board then put $200 under that amount on the account through gift cards.

 

[Naty1209]

don't know if I saw this just skimming the posts but if you want to use the gift cards for your on board account, you have to be PIF before you can set that up. I always tally my excursions and projected spendings on board then put $200 under that amount on the account through gift cards.

Sorry, what's PIF?

 

[Beth D]

Sorry, what's PIF?

Paid in Full date.

We also purchase gift cards at Kroger when they have 4X fuel rewards, using our Disney Visa - to get the points that way too!

 

[Naty1209]

So I can buy like $500 worth of GCs and ask them to use that towards my onboard expenses?

 

[ocspartan]

I always thought Disney had our house bugged so that every time we thought about a vacation an ad or a commercial would pop up, but you all on this board must have read my mind....

Recently booked our next cruise though costco, and then learned about the target 5% GCs thanks to this board. I saw another post that costco only accepts Credit Cards for payment (AMEX, etc.) Did the costco TA's give you any hassle on doing this or was it a pretty straight forward process? Did they have a limit per day? Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated.

 

[IBelieveInTheMagic]

I always thought Disney had our house bugged so that every time we thought about a vacation an ad or a commercial would pop up, but you all on this board must have read my mind....

Recently booked our next cruise though costco, and then learned about the target 5% GCs thanks to this board. I saw another post that costco only accepts Credit Cards for payment (AMEX, etc.) Did the costco TA's give you any hassle on doing this or was it a pretty straight forward process? Did they have a limit per day? Any feedback on this would be greatly appreciated.

No problem with Costco (see my post on the previous page). I have used Costco for the last three of our cruises and have used my Red card to save 5% on the Disney gift cards. I typically call in 5-10 cards at a time and haven't had any issues. As I mentioned it can take a little while so just be patient. I wouldn't think there is a limit but I'm sure it needs to be reasonable but they've never even implied they cared - meaning they weren't bothered by it. The most I had to call in at one time was 19 when we decided to switch our 2014 Alaskan cruise to 2013 and I had to pay in full since we were past the PIF date. Again no problem

Heather

 

[ahain]

I see several of you booking your cruise through Costco....does Costco offer discounted fares? If so, what discount do they offer? I might just have to become a member! I was under the impression that you pricing was the same wherever you booked (except OBB)?