Chase Disney is Turning Me into a Madwoman!

[secretpantssam]

I'm getting married in August. We've been putting a lot of wedding expenses on our Disney Visa and we got money toward our disneymoon...it's win win!

 

[mommyof2princesses]

Well frost my cupcakes! I just ran my numbers with the Disney Rewards calculator and I really need to get one of those 5x rewards postcards. Does anyone know when they mail these out? Is there a way to up your chances of getting one?

OK, stay with me here....

• DH and I want to get (2) 10-Day Park Hopper passes with no expiry and the H2O option when we go back in 2.5 years. These passes will last us for the next 3-4 trips.
• Today that would cost us $1332. This doesn't even factor in price increases for the next couple of years.
• We'll have (2) 1-day passes from previous FD trips that we'll upgrade to buy the 10-day passes. These will reduce our overall costs by about $180.
• That leaves $1152 that must be paid for. *sigh*
• With our current spending we will not get near $1152 in rewards from our Disney Visa.
• With our current rate of return we'll likely have close to $500 in rewards.
• This is most excellent ("Party on dudes"), but my (over zealous, overly ambitious, rules mongering, type-A, commando-touring) goal is to have enough rewards points/Disney dollars that my OOP will be less than $500.
  

Can it be done? Only time will tell.

So do you, my fellow MEDDRD'ers (that's Mad Extreme Disney Dream Reward Dollar'ers) have any tips or advice that might help me reach this goal?

We knew the prices were going up a few weeks ago, so we went ahead and got the 10 day park hopper with no-exp from undercover tourist. We don't need them till January and they will be good for our next 2-3 trips. Plus it earned up about $20 in reward dollars! Our last trip was the first time we had actually had points to cover 1/4 of the price of the trip. This year we are working towards the whole room cost since we are not doing a packege. We will see!

 

[aribelle]

So do you, my fellow MEDDRD'ers (that's Mad Extreme Disney Dream Reward Dollar'ers) have any tips or advice that might help me reach this goal?

CHARGE EVERYTHING. And I do mean everything (ok, exception is anything that charges you a fee for charging like my #@*(# mortgage company, lol). Do not allow your husband or yourself to carry cash....forcing you to charge everything, lol.

Ask you friends/family who are going to make large purchases to give you the cash and let you put it on your card (just be sure to get the cash first so you can pay it off and don't incur finance charges!!!). Seriously....I was just casually talking to a friend who said she was going to buy a new mattress the next day....and was going to pay cash. I went with her and bought it on my VISA, she handed me a check and I made $12....plus got to spend time with my friend, lol.

My husband has a business credit card for airline, hotel, rental cars, office supplies etc. He talked with his boss about using his personal card for these and the boss was fine with just warning us it could take 2-3 weeks to get reimbursed.....but hey, that's fine because even if the charge posted the day before the bill was issued I'd still have almost a month before payment was due. So I LOVE him going on trips now, lol. Just put him on the plane this morning for New York...>$500 plane ticket, $800 car rental and about $1500 in hotel, not to mention meals etc. That should net us about $25-30 without it actually costing us a penny, lol. Sadly, he only does this every 2-3 months, but hey, I'll take it!

Seriously......remember that even little purchases add up....sure that McD's is only $5 but add that to the gas you bought earlier, and the Starbucks this afternoon and the $3 parking garage fee, and hey, suddenly that's a buck or two in rewards......and again, doesn't cost you a single EXTRA penny. Do this everyday for a month and you could easily earn a couple hundred a year!

Check to see if your utilities, cell phone, etc can be paid online by credit card....only one of ours charges a fee for credit card so I pay them with check, but the rest I pay with VISA.

Our Sam's club doesn't take VISA, so for a long time I was sad to not get rewards for all THAT money I spend......now I use my VISA to buy Walmart gift cards at Walmart and use them to pay for things at Sams Club! Walmart does NOT charge a fee for their gift cards so no extra costs to me, but now the hundreds I spend at Sam's Club each month leads to rewards.

Keep your eyes open for other ways! Just be absolutely positively sure that you can pay it off at the end of each month (I pay it on payday just so I know I don't over spend). Finance charges have a knack of eating away at those rewards!

Oh...and when it comes time to pay for that Disney trip, of course, charge your airfare, hotel, rental car, and even those upgraded tickets! Sure, some of that probably won't post to your account in time to get to use those rewards THAT trip, but hey, start saving for the next one!

 

[MapleGirl]

CHARGE EVERYTHING. And I do mean everything (ok, exception is anything that charges you a fee for charging like my #@*(# mortgage company, lol). Do not allow your husband or yourself to carry cash....forcing you to charge everything, lol.

Ask you friends/family who are going to make large purchases to give you the cash and let you put it on your card (just be sure to get the cash first so you can pay it off and don't incur finance charges!!!). Seriously....I was just casually talking to a friend who said she was going to buy a new mattress the next day....and was going to pay cash. I went with her and bought it on my VISA, she handed me a check and I made $12....plus got to spend time with my friend, lol.

My husband has a business credit card for airline, hotel, rental cars, office supplies etc. He talked with his boss about using his personal card for these and the boss was fine with just warning us it could take 2-3 weeks to get reimbursed.....but hey, that's fine because even if the charge posted the day before the bill was issued I'd still have almost a month before payment was due. So I LOVE him going on trips now, lol. Just put him on the plane this morning for New York...>$500 plane ticket, $800 car rental and about $1500 in hotel, not to mention meals etc. That should net us about $25-30 without it actually costing us a penny, lol. Sadly, he only does this every 2-3 months, but hey, I'll take it!

Seriously......remember that even little purchases add up....sure that McD's is only $5 but add that to the gas you bought earlier, and the Starbucks this afternoon and the $3 parking garage fee, and hey, suddenly that's a buck or two in rewards......and again, doesn't cost you a single EXTRA penny. Do this everyday for a month and you could easily earn a couple hundred a year!

Check to see if your utilities, cell phone, etc can be paid online by credit card....only one of ours charges a fee for credit card so I pay them with check, but the rest I pay with VISA.

Our Sam's club doesn't take VISA, so for a long time I was sad to not get rewards for all THAT money I spend......now I use my VISA to buy Walmart gift cards at Walmart and use them to pay for things at Sams Club! Walmart does NOT charge a fee for their gift cards so no extra costs to me, but now the hundreds I spend at Sam's Club each month leads to rewards.

Keep your eyes open for other ways! Just be absolutely positively sure that you can pay it off at the end of each month (I pay it on payday just so I know I don't over spend). Finance charges have a knack of eating away at those rewards!

Oh...and when it comes time to pay for that Disney trip, of course, charge your airfare, hotel, rental car, and even those upgraded tickets! Sure, some of that probably won't post to your account in time to get to use those rewards THAT trip, but hey, start saving for the next one!

Nice tips, thank you! I hadn't thought about buying AmEx giftcards with the Visa to pay for stuff at Costco (that only accepts AmEx). Excellent idea!

 

[Disneybuckeye]

We also put everything on our Disney Visa and pay it off every month. The only thing I pay on it that charges a fee to use is our Gas & Electric. They charge a flat fee of $3.50 no matter how large the bill. Any month our G & E is over $400 that goes on the CC as I still make money on the deal. As our house is very large and has three heating/cooling sytems there are only 1 or 2 months it is under $400. I would never give up a cash discount to use a CC though.

Sounds like we all are working this system pretty well. I just hope it does not go away as I like having "free money" to put towards my vacations.

 

[starry_solo]

How do you use the reward dollars to get disney gift cards?

 

[robinb]

We put EVERYTHING on our credit card and pay it off every month. In the process, I have amassed a shocking number of Disney Reward Dollars. Then we picked up an American Airlines card to do a promotion where we get 75,000 free airline miles and we stopped using the Chase card. I am surprised that someone from Chase hasn't called us asking if everything is OK . I hope that they offer one of those multiple point promos to us after we have been "gone" for a while. Every time we have received them in the past the requirements were very high because they were based on our average usage.

 

[MapleGirl]

Uh-Oh!
DH is trying to foil my diabolical plan.

I shared a PP's idea of buying AmEx giftcards with the Dis card and using them at Costco. He subtly rejected it pointing out that the AmEx card we have (and only use at Costco) has rewards points too and they can be used on amazon.com Ummm..... Yes, I am an amazon fan-girl but we're trying to meet a goal here people! (And besides he's the only one who tends to use said amazon/AmEx points ) I think it might be time to pull out the overhead projector and powerpoint slides and have a long boring discussion about our relationship...

 

[SuzanneSLO]

You have not really gone crazy until you use your Disney VISA to buy $1 coins from the US Mint, so that you can earn points even when paying cash! Fair warning: you need to buy a minimum of $250 to get free shipping and they weigh a ton! -- Suzanne

 

[robinb]

You have not really gone crazy until you use your Disney VISA to buy $1 coins from the US Mint, so that you can earn points even when paying cash! Fair warning: you need to buy a minimum of $250 to get free shipping and they weigh a ton! -- Suzanne

I know someone who has done that!

 

[MapleGirl]

You have not really gone crazy until you use your Disney VISA to buy $1 coins from the US Mint, so that you can earn points even when paying cash! Fair warning: you need to buy a minimum of $250 to get free shipping and they weigh a ton! -- Suzanne

OMG, this is brilliant. Link?

 

[MapleGirl]

I know someone who has done that!

DH said we should buy LOTS of them and go pay our mortgage in cash each month.

 

[leslie826]

DH and I are working hard to stick to a budget and pay off all our consumer debt. We're doing great and actually having fun with it. However, Chase Disney is getting in the way. We make all our purchases and put as many bills on the Chase card as we can and pay it off every week (we're die hard about not paying a penny of interest). Between car repairs, groceries, gas, bills and some reimbursable business expenses we've racked up quite a few Disney Dollars and I'm all like .

But now the sickness has set in .... (cue scary, foreboding music) I must have more Disney Dollars! MORE!!!!! DH and I bought a new bed this weekend. It was needed but required us to shift our budget around. I hate spending money but I'm evilly gleeful about the coming Disney Dollars. My mother is making some online purchases.... "Wait mom! I'll pay for them and you can send me a check." : More Disney Dollars..... MORE!!!!! MWUAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!

I've turned into the Mrs. Hyde of Disney Dollars mongering. When will the madness end??

I don't want to be an extreme couponer - I want to be an extreme Disney Doller-er!

ETA: In all fairness to Chase, I was pretty mad to start with.

This is awesome! Sooo glad I'm not alone! I went a little mad when my 3x bonus points started

 

[Disneybuckeye]

DH said we should buy LOTS of them and go pay our mortgage in cash each month.

Genius!! Your husband figured out how I can get Disney Reward dollars by paying my mortgage. If I did it for that, and my kids college tuition, I can DDRD for everything I buy!!!

 

[darlaya]

Hi All. I need some help understanding what I need to do when my DRD's are credited. My husband and I just received our Chase Disney Visa. I used it to pay off our upcoming trip in September and am hoping that I will be able to access the DRD's for the trip. I have read that you have to get order a reward card. Is this correct? Is this information on their site?

I am very excited to read how people are earning lots of reward dollars...yipee!

 

[FoundMyPrince]

OMG, this is brilliant. Link?

http://advancedriskology.com/the-day-i-bought-15000/

You've got to read this. Of course, I wouldn't do it. Okay, I've already done it...but not $15,000. This is a great way to mass points, frequent flyer miles, etc.

http://catalog.usmint.gov/webapp/wc...1&parent_category_rn=16238&top_category=16238

 

[MaleficentRN]

You have not really gone crazy until you use your Disney VISA to buy $1 coins from the US Mint, so that you can earn points even when paying cash! Fair warning: you need to buy a minimum of $250 to get free shipping and they weigh a ton! -- Suzanne