Advice on using Disney gift cards

[leebee]

That's exactly why we have the Disney Visa card -- to earn rewards/money specifically for a Disney trip. I have people tell me all the time that I could be getting better rewards with a different card (usually one of the airlines, but my husband hates to fly and really only does it for business, so earning free airline tickets is useless for us.), but we stick with the Disney card because it "forces" us to take a Disney trip every few years. That's what works best for us.

Yes, us too! I love that the rewards are "Ear"marked for Disney!

 

[leebee]

I think I’ll order from shopdisney next time I need a new plastic card. I currently have 4 Mickeys, numbered 1-4, and one Toy Story. I need more variety!

I just got a Mulan card for my "hard card." Anything I buy online or at Sams/BJs gets entered into my disneygiftcard account and then transferred to Mulan. Before I learned about hard plastic cards and combining cards I was going crazy with all those red Mickey cardboard cards and emails!

 

[tcbgal]

Please be patient with me on this one. I feel like I’m missing something here, but I’m not exactly sure what it is.

I’m a little confused about the best way to utilize Disney Gift Cards during our next stay. We were there in February of this year, and I had about $600 worth of e-cards (from Sam’s) that I used, but it wasn’t a smooth process. At the Biergarten on our first day, the server had me follow her across the restaurant to input the card info at a terminal, and then couldn’t quite figure out how to use the card directly, so I charged the meal to our room. That made me hesitant to use the e-cards directly at restaurants, so I ended up charging most meals to our room.

Which was fine, but I then spent more time than I wanted to at the front desk of the Yacht Club while e-card info was physically typed into a computer each time I wanted to pay my balance before it was charged to the credit card on file. It seems a bit old school. Not sure why they couldn’t just scan a barcode, but they couldn’t. And yes, I’ve read differing accounts on this forum, but our credit card was charged on the second day we were there to cover a couple of hundred dollars, and they told me at the front desk to come down every other day to avoid credit card charges.

If I’m understanding correctly, you can’t add Disney gift cards from Sam’s (either e-cards or physical cards) directly to your Apple Wallet. Which I think would be the easiest way to use them.

I’m just curious what others do. Get actual physical cards and hand them over at restaurants like a credit card? Can I charge meals to the room and then have the resort scan the physical card to credit my account?

I prefer to charge as little as possible to our credit card while there, so I’d like to figure out the easiest way to make use of gift cards that I’ll purchase in advance at a small discount.

Thanks to anyone who might offer some advice!

 

[tcbgal]

I have $500 on a cardboard card bought from a store and loaded it into Disneycard to confirm it. If it’s confirmed to have the money could it still be tampered with after loaded? Is it still worth transferring to a plastic card from Disney?

I prefer the actual cards. Much less hassle!

 

[Suze10860]

I prefer the actual cards. Much less hassle!

I'm changing up my strategy next trip.

I've already got 1 physical card that I'm going to fill to the max with my discounted e-cards. I think bringing 2 cards on the trip should do me...

 

[Scalemaster34]

We keep on physical card and then one card in each of our Apple Wallet... just easier to use our phone to show AP for discount and then switch over to the GC for payment.

 

[Takeitforgranite]

We give our girls gift cards to use for their own souvenirs. We got the paper gift cards from Target, and I managed to tear a couple removing them from the packaging. They also don’t survive the washing cycle. Keeping some plastic cards to load is good advice.

As for everything else that isn’t table service, we use MBs, and I pay on the balance with Disney Visa rewards at the resort.