Disney gift cards from the grocery store ?

[disneysnowflake]

I've been buying Disney Gift Cards from Sam's for months. A $100 card costs $98.87 plus each one comes with a bonus $10 Disney Store GC. I feel like I'm getting a little discount and they are adding up!

I wish I had a Sam's Club membership. I'll have to ask around to friends and family to see who does, and maybe they can get Disney gift cards for me (if our Sam's has them).

 

[dthogue]

So one just waltzes up to the reservation counter at a resort and you give them dozens of gift cards for a 1k reservation amount due?

Disney doesnt frown on that and limit the # of cards you can use?

That is correct - no limit - but it does take awhile - they have to enter each and every card and is time consuming - it is better to get one card from the Disney store, than add money to it, so you only have one card to deal with.

 

[ValpoCory]

Last December I bought 80 $15 Disney Gift Cards ($1,200 total) from a Texas Grocery Store called H-E-B, and got 80 $5 H-E-B Gift Cards free ($400 free).

All you have to do is call the number on the back on the Gift card during weekday business hours and they will combine the gift cards into whatever combination you want. Ultimately, I made one big Gift Card that I kept in my wallet during the trip, using it as a declining balance at Disney World (Man it goes fast). On the phone, it took about 20 minutes to consolidate 10 gift cards. I did 10 at a time as to not overwhelm the Disney Card employees.

 

[denecarter]

Last December I bought 80 $15 Disney Gift Cards ($1,200 total) from a Texas Grocery Store called H-E-B, and got 80 $5 H-E-B Gift Cards free ($400 free).

All you have to do is call the number on the back on the Gift card during weekday business hours and they will combine the gift cards into whatever combination you want. Ultimately, I made one big Gift Card that I kept in my wallet during the trip, using it as a declining balance at Disney World (Man it goes fast). On the phone, it took about 20 minutes to consolidate 10 gift cards. I did 10 at a time as to not overwhelm the Disney Card employees.

Our HEB is under construction... hope they have that promo again once its open!

 

[Inkmahm]

Last December I bought 80 $15 Disney Gift Cards ($1,200 total) from a Texas Grocery Store called H-E-B, and got 80 $5 H-E-B Gift Cards free ($400 free).

All you have to do is call the number on the back on the Gift card during weekday business hours and they will combine the gift cards into whatever combination you want. Ultimately, I made one big Gift Card that I kept in my wallet during the trip, using it as a declining balance at Disney World (Man it goes fast). On the phone, it took about 20 minutes to consolidate 10 gift cards. I did 10 at a time as to not overwhelm the Disney Card employees.

Thank you for this info! I buy my gift cards on ebay to get the Mr. Rebates 3% discount and the ebay 2% discount. Plus whatever discount I can get off the face value of the cards. I have LOTS of Disney cards and I really don't want to carry them all with me. I will start calling to consolidate 10 at a time into a single card for $500 instead of 10 cards of $50.

 

[ShariVT]

That's interesting when I emailed them to see if I could combine my cards the said no I couldn't but I could add to them. Guess I will have to try calling. Has anyone else had sucess combining there gift cards.

 

[scottmel]

What would you do is this gift card scenario? I get my gift cards at Giant Eagle for gas savings - works out to paying 88.00 for a 100 disney gift card. So I buy LOTS! I have a nice fat stack of them. I hate to show up at WDW with this big stack. I owe a balance on 3 nights of our trip, paid 1 night already with gc as deposit. Should I pay balance of other 2 nights prior to trip and just call in GC numbers or would you show up at resort with them? That just seems like a big pain...I saved a 500.00 one to use on a ticket upgrade but my 100, 25, 50 cards are a big stack...thoughts

 

[Dahly]

That's interesting when I emailed them to see if I could combine my cards the said no I couldn't but I could add to them. Guess I will have to try calling. Has anyone else had sucess combining there gift cards.

I was told the same thing...I had 48 100's that I wanted to combined into 4 bigger amounts to pay off 4 cruises in one chunk, but was told no when I called the number of the back of the card. Would have made it so much easier on my TA, but I had to submit them $100 at a time. I had been buying them over time to when I found them at Sam's or Kroger with a promo, but it was a pain to apply them to our balances.

If anyone has any hints on how to combine, please post here! I want to do the same for our next trip, because it is nice to get the freebie Disney shopping card, or gas promo from Kroger, but not sure I want to go through the hassle of redeeming 30+ cards again.

thanks!

Dahly

 

[scottmel]

Not sure if Kroger would do this but last year Giant Eagle only carried 25 or 50 cards and I bought 3k worth and yes sat wtih the CM for 45 minutes on the phone redeeming one by one but hey 360.00 in free gas it was worth it! THIS year they carry 200 and 500 increments. SO much easier....So maybe they will d this at Krogers?It was almost like Giant tested with the small cards but there were really popular and then brought in 100. 200 and 500

 

[Inkmahm]

I was told the same thing...I had 48 100's that I wanted to combined into 4 bigger amounts to pay off 4 cruises in one chunk, but was told no when I called the number of the back of the card. Would have made it so much easier on my TA, but I had to submit them $100 at a time. I had been buying them over time to when I found them at Sam's or Kroger with a promo, but it was a pain to apply them to our balances.

If anyone has any hints on how to combine, please post here! I want to do the same for our next trip, because it is nice to get the freebie Disney shopping card, or gas promo from Kroger, but not sure I want to go through the hassle of redeeming 30+ cards again.

thanks!

Dahly

Oh, no! I have lots of $50 cards that I want to convert to $500 or $1,000 if possible. It is just just a pain to carry that many cards along on a vacation to WDW. I'd rather have smaller number of cards with high $ value.

Anyone know any other way to convert these cards? Is there a way to do it in person at WDW somehow?

 

[sydneysmom]

What would you do is this gift card scenario? I get my gift cards at Giant Eagle for gas savings - works out to paying 88.00 for a 100 disney gift card. So I buy LOTS! I have a nice fat stack of them. I hate to show up at WDW with this big stack. I owe a balance on 3 nights of our trip, paid 1 night already with gc as deposit. Should I pay balance of other 2 nights prior to trip and just call in GC numbers or would you show up at resort with them? That just seems like a big pain...I saved a 500.00 one to use on a ticket upgrade but my 100, 25, 50 cards are a big stack...thoughts

You could use them online and pay your balance , no ? I know for the vacation packages you can just enter in the gift cards and pay with them. If it were me, I'd pay in advance and be done with it. (so you can get to the park faster )

 

[cristielf]

I apologize up front if this has been asked before.... but for those of you that have bought Disney gift cards from the grocery store, (ours is Kroger). I can't buy them at the Disney Store because we don't have one near us any longer. I have a few questions that hopefully someone can answer...

1. do they expire ? I'm thinking about maybe getting a $25 one each time I go food shopping as a "savings" for Disney. We're not going until 2013 though, so I don't want to do this if they expire.

2. can you use these gift cards when booking your reservation ? I know I can use our Disney Rewards points, but can I use a Disney gift card as payment for the hotel / dining / park tix ?

3. can you use the Disney gift cards for tips / souveniers / etc in the parks ? We're going to be on Deluxe dining plan, so if we can use these for tips, I wouldn't have to bring much cash....

4. Is there a difference in the gift cards they sell at Kroger vs. The Disney Store ? (for what you can use them on?) if you can use the Disney store cards for more things, I can just set aside the cash and buy the gift cards on the Disney website instead of getting them at the grocery store...

I think that's pretty much all that I can think of right now....TIA !!!

I did the same thing.. I bough 2k worth of gift cards and although I'm glad that I did, SOME places will not take them. For example, Wishes Dessert Party does NOT take them to reserve a spot and also, I wanted to use it to order tickets through the Youth Enrollment program and I couldn't use it there either.

 

[Marionnette]

I did the same thing.. I bough 2k worth of gift cards and although I'm glad that I did, SOME places will not take them. For example, Wishes Dessert Party does NOT take them to reserve a spot and also, I wanted to use it to order tickets through the Youth Enrollment program and I couldn't use it there either.

That's interesting that YES doesn't take the gift cards as a form of payment. We're going for a convention later this summer and I was able to order and pay for "After 2pm" and "After 4pm" tickets using a gift card. You would think that all group sales would use the same payment methods.

Things that make you go hmmm...

 

[starry_solo]

It's three cards at a time. Last year I did two separate transactions when purchasing tickets at the park. This works if buying more than one ticket because you can purchase in separate transactions.

Wow, I used 10 gift cards on Saturday to pay for my sis' and my annual pass renewal (DLR, not WDW). All on one transaction.