When we bought a travel trailer a couple years ago, I arranged fiinancing through my credit union, but used my Disney Visa to actually make the purchase in order to get the points, then I paid off the Visa bill with the credit union loan.
Next month we're having a new roof put on the house and the money will come out of savings, but I'm putting the bill on my Disney Visa (again for the points) and then paying off the bill.
We rarely carry a balance, as the interest rate is higher than some other Visa cards, but I called and told them I was going to change credit cards due to their high interest rate, and they actually lowered the rate for a year.
We've used Disney points to pay for accommodations at the Disney resorts, purchases and shore excursions during our
Disney cruise last January, and have another hundred or so points saved up for our trip in early December.
We did have a balance on our card when we booked our Disney cruise, but it was interest free for 6 months so we had plenty of time to pay it off.